- Dana White revealed Conor McGregor’s long-awaited return to the Octagon
- The Irishman has been out of action since his clash with Dustin Poirier in 2021
Dana White concluded the landmark UFC 300 event by officially announcing Conor McGregor’s clash with Michael Chandler.
The pair have been set to face off inside the Octagon for months, and even coached The Ultimate Fighter TV show against each other.
Speculation has gone back and forth in recent months, and McGregor recently revealed that he had received confirmation of the fight going ahead.
With all parties finally in alignment, the UFC president officially announced that the pair will finally face off on pay-per-view on June 29.
The clash will be contested at 170lbs and be a five-round main event for UFC 303 in New Jersey.
The fight will mark nearly three years since the last time the 35-year-old stepped into the Octagon.
On that night at UFC 264 McGregor suffered a horrific leg break that threatened to put an end to his career in combat sports but has since returned to training in preparation for his comeback.
‘Well, I think when you look at [coming back from] that injury, it’s happened in UFC.’ White said.
‘We just saw Chris Weidman come back, Anderson [Silva] came back from it, you saw it, you’ve seen it in football. It’s probably one of the nastiest injuries that you could possibly get. ‘
‘For some reason you see guys with broken arms all the time and stuff like that happens. It’s hard for us as humans to wrap our brain around that bone breaking, It’s a nasty injury. And it’s a rough recovery, too. It’s a really rough recovery.’
Asked why the fight had been in the pipeline for such a long time, the UFC president revealed that McGregor has only recently been able to train for his return to the Octagon due to external commitments.
‘It’s not that we’ve been working on it for ages,’ he added. ‘There are all kinds of things that go on behind the scenes.
‘It’s all about timing. Chandler has been ready but Conor hasn’t been ready. We talked about this at one of the press conferences recently, he had a lot of obligations that he had to deal with.
‘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% for a fight.’
The date for his clash with former Bellator star Chandler remains the same as the one McGregor teased in a social media post on New Year’s Eve.
Though at that time the Irishman claimed the bout would instead take place at middleweight, a division neither he nor Chandler had previously competed in.
After becoming a two-weight world champion in Cage Warriors, McGregor would sign with the UFC in 2013 and embark on a dominant run in the featherweight division, reeling off five consecutive wins before defeating Chad Mendes to claim the interim featherweight title.
McGregor’s final fight at 145lbs saw him dethrone long-reigning champion Jose Aldo in stunning fashion after just 13 seconds to unify the belts.
Since then the Irishman has competed at both 155lbs and 170lbs, defeating Eddie Alvarez in the former to become a the first-ever UFC simultaneous two-weight world champion.
Traditionally held in July, International Fight Week has been a fixture of the UFC’s calendar since 2011, with the first edition of the event headlined by UFC 148 that saw Chael Sonnen rematch Anderson Silva for the middleweight title.
Last year the event in Las Vegas included a Hall of Fame ceremony, a two-day fan experience and a UFC 290 card that was headlined by featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski’s clash with Yair Rodriguez.
Olivia Martin is a dedicated sports journalist based in the UK. With a passion for various athletic disciplines, she covers everything from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis.
