Conor McGregor will make his long-awaited return to the octagon against Michael Chandler on June 29, three years after he broke his left leg in a fight against Dustin Poirier, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) president Dana White said. The welterweight fight is scheduled to headline the UFC 303 card in Las Vegas, White said after Saturday’s UFC 300 event.
Irishman McGregor (22-6) has not fought since the fracture in his tibia resulted in a second straight TKO loss to Poirier in July 2021. The injury forced the former UFC featherweight and lightweight champion to undergo surgery. Former Bellator lightweight champion Chandler (23-8) also lost to compatriot Poirier in his last fight in November 2022.
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The fight has been teased by the UFC for more than a year, with McGregor and Chandler coaching opponents on their MMA-based reality show The Ultimate Fighter last year. McGregor announced the same date and opponent for his next fight in a video posted to X last December, calling it the “greatest comeback of all time.”
“There are all kinds of things happening behind the scenes and it’s all about timing. Chandler was ready, but Conor wasn’t ready,” White said. “We talked about this recently at one of the press conferences, he had a lot of commitments that he had to deal with. What you don’t want him to do is accept a fight when he has a lot of commitments and he can’t train 100% for a fight, so here we are tonight.
On the UFC 300 card, Brazilian Alex Pereira scored a stunning first-round knockout victory over Jamahal Hill to retain the light heavyweight title, while Zhang Weili defeated Yan Xiaonan to retain the Straweight title.
Pereira swung away what looked like a low blow from Hill before landing a left hook that sent the American falling backwards to the canvas. He then jumped up to throw punches and force the stoppage at 3:14 of the first round. “I told everyone all the time: he’s a strong man, I can’t deviate from my strategy, and that’s exactly what I did… I was measuring the distance and the timing, and everything went perfectly” , Pereira said in a post-fight interview in the cage.
Hill had won the title in January 2023, but an injury in basketball forced him out in July and decorated kickboxer Pereira, a former UFC middleweight champion, took the title with a second-round knockout of Jiri Prochazka in November. After coming through the fight relatively unscathed, Pereira said he would like to fight on the upcoming UFC card in Brazil in May, and that he had not suffered any damage against Hill.
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In the all-Chinese clash in the strawweight event, Zhang looked like she almost ended the fight in the first round with a rear naked choke, but her 34-year-old opponent survived until the bell and looked shaky as she returned to her feet . Yan had some success, but Zhang took the fight to the mat as often as possible, dominating the wrestling exchanges en route to a unanimous decision victory.
In perhaps the most exciting finish on the card, Max Holloway folded Justin Gaethje with a thunderous right hand and won their lightweight bout by knockout with one second left after an incredible five-round fight.