What Took So Long To Book Conor Comeback?

After the dust cleared inside the T-Mobile Arena following the explosive UFC 300 event in Las Vegas, Nevada, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO, Dana White, continued to set off fireworks with multiple fight announcements backstage.

Among them was a Lightweight title fight between division king, Islam Makhachev, and former interim title holder, Dustin Poirier, which will headline UFC 302 on June 1, 2024 in Newark, New Jersey. But the fight announcement the world has been waiting for was the long-awaited collision between Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler, which was made official for UFC 303 on June 29 in “Sin City.”

It’s a fight that had been teased for nearly nine months, with one delay after another irritating fight fans and McGregor himself. So what was the holdup? According to White, McGregor simply had too much on his plate to commit to his long-awaited return, and forcing him back before he was ready would’ve been disastrous.

“It’s not that we’ve been working on it for ages, it’s that there are a lot of things that go on behind the scenes. It’s all about timing. Chandler has been ready but Conor wasn’t ready,” said White during the post-fight press conference (video replay here).

“Conor had a lot of obligations that he had to deal with, and what you don’t want him doing is accepting a fight when he’s got a ton of obligations and he can’t train 100-percent for a fight. So here we are tonight.”

During his off time, McGregor had been busy promoting his acting debut in the remake of “Road House,” which has so far had massive success streaming on Prime Video. And, let’s not forget the fact that “Notorious” is a business man outside of the cage, so he always has several responsibilities moving him in different directions.

As far as McGregor’s health goes — in particular coming back from a nasty leg break — White feels that the fiery Irishman will be able to perform just as well as he had in the past… as long as he wins the mental aspect of it all.

“When you look at that injury, it’s happened in UFC, Chris Weidman came back from that injury and Anderson Silva came back from that injury and you have seen it in football,” explained White.

“It’s probably one of the nastiest injuries you can get. You see guys with broken arms all the time and stuff like that happens. But us as humans can not wrap our head around having that bone breaking. It’s just a nasty injury and it’s a rough recovery, too.”

McGregor suffered the leg break in his trilogy fight against Poirier at UFC 264 in July 2021 and has worked hard during the rehab process to be back at full strength. But as White mentioned, the injury wasn’t part of his delay over the last few months, and for anyone who feels McGregor was simply being difficult in negotiations, White says it’s the furthest thing from the truth.

“It’s never hard with Conor. I have said it all the time, Conor has always been a great partner. He is easy to deal with and we are back. Conor has always been easy to deal with. He’s a smart dude,” expressed White before proclaiming his biggest money-maker of all time a UFC partner for life.

“Conor is a die-hard UFC guy and will be until he retires and beyond,” he concluded.

Now that the return of the king is official, the combat sports world will wait to see in a little over two months if “Notorious” can return to his old dominant ways coming off an injury and such a lengthy layoff. That said, McGregor hadn’t been exactly lighting it up inside the Octagon since becoming “champ-champ” in 2016, going just 1-3 in that span.

Still, the former Featherweight and Lightweight champion is adamant he has not taken much damage inside the cage, and of he gets through a tough opponent in Chandler it could mean “Notorious” overload.

For much more on the McGregor vs. Chandler rivalry click here.