Dana White said this weekend that no agreement has been reached for Conor McGregor’s return to the UFC, backing away from the confidence he showed only days earlier that the Irishman would be back in action this summer. No comeback fight was announced at UFC 328.
White put it plainly: “There’s no deal done with Conor.” He added, “I was just saying I’m confident. I was confident last year, too, but I’m way more confident this year.” The comments matter because McGregor has spent months pushing the idea that a return was close, while the UFC president now says the process is still not finished.
McGregor wanted to fight on June’s White House card, and when that did not happen, a return during International Fight Week in July was suggested. But the UFC left the weekend without a formal announcement, extending a wait that has already stretched back to 2021, when McGregor snapped his leg in defeat to Dustin Poirier and has not appeared in a UFC Octagon since.
That long absence has been matched by a changing business model. The UFC has moved away from pay-per-view and now streams its shows on Paramount+ in America, meaning fighters no longer receive a percentage of pay-per-view revenue. Earlier this year, McGregor posted on social media that his UFC contract was “essentially void” because the pay-per-view model no longer exists.
White said the new system still leaves room to make McGregor whole. “There’s a formula to it. McGregor’s going to do just fine,” he said, explaining, “It’s based on if you take the average of his pay-per-view buys, and what they do, there’s an equation for that that you can — we’ve done it with a lot more guys than just McGregor.”
For now, that formula has not produced a deal, and the delay leaves one question hanging over the next phase of McGregor’s comeback: who he will actually face when the UFC finally puts him back in the cage. Reports from MMA media in America say BMF champion Max Holloway is in pole position to be his opponent if and when the return happens.
