UFC CEO Dana White announced Saturday that Conor McGregor will return to competition after a five-year layoff and will face former featherweight champion Max Holloway in a nontitle welterweight bout at UFC 329 on July 11 in Las Vegas, the report says.
McGregor’s return comes almost to the date of his last Octagon appearance. The report says his most recent fight was a TKO loss to Dustin Poirier on July 10, 2021, in which McGregor suffered a broken leg after taking a step backwards in the final seconds of the first round.
The pairing is a rematch of a featherweight bout from August 2013, McGregor’s second UFC fight, when he defeated Holloway in a three-round decision in Boston. The report says McGregor suffered a torn ACL during that 2013 bout but still managed to outwrestle Holloway.
McGregor is listed in the report with a 22-6 record and is 37 years old. The report says he had been scheduled to face Michael Chandler in a comeback fight at UFC 303 in June 2024 but withdrew with a toe injury. The report also notes McGregor became the UFC’s first simultaneous double champion in 2016 when he won the lightweight title against Eddie Alvarez, later boxed Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2017 and returned to UFC competition in 2018.
Additional context in the report says McGregor is 1-3 in his past four appearances and that the July rematch will be only his second fight at the 170-pound welterweight limit, with the majority of his career taking place at 145 and 155 pounds. Holloway, the report says, is 27-9 and also a former featherweight champion who moved to lightweight permanently in 2025 and is 1-1 since that move, most recently suffering a five-round decision loss to Charles Oliveira in March.
