Conor McGregor’s return against Max Holloway at UFC 329 in Las Vegas ended at just 1:09 of the first round Saturday night because of a knee injury.
Fighting for the first time in more than five years, the 37-year-old McGregor flew across the ring with a flying left roundhouse kick when the match started and landed awkwardly on his right knee.
After attempting to kick and strike Holloway (28-9-0) two more times, it was clear McGregor (22-7-0) couldn’t finish the scheduled five-round welterweight bout.
“Five years off in this sport is rough,” UFC President Dana White said. “We’re assuming a blown ACL. That’s what I assumed when I saw it, and that’s what the doctors think, too.”
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“What can I say? I had him weak in the knees I guess,” Holloway, who had started the fight as the hot favourite, said. “So much hype. We’ve got to run it back one more time,” he said. “For it to end like this sucks.”
McGregor, who strolled to the ring to the sounds of the Notorious BIG’s ‘Hypnotize’ and the roar of the sold-out crowd at T-Mobile Arena, last fought exactly five years and a day before Saturday night.
In what McGregor called “the comeback of all comebacks in sports history”, the bout was a rematch of a 2013 featherweight fight which the Irishman won by unanimous decision.
McGregor had not fought since breaking his left leg in a 2021 defeat to American Dustin Poirier. McGregor had been the UFC’s most marketable star before that injury, in 2016 becoming the first to hold two titles simultaneously at different weights. He reportedly earned more than $100m for losing a boxing superfight against Floyd Mayweather Jr in 2017.
McGregor’s last UFC victory was a 40-second triumph over American Donald Cerrone in January 2020.
