The long five-year wait for Conor McGregor's Octagon return fell flat when the megastar went down with a knee injury just 69 seconds after the opening bell against Max Holloway. The UFC 329 main event was a massive disappointment for all involved, but to some fellow legends of the sport, it was also a sign that McGregor's time is completely over.
Former McGregor rival Dustin Poirier spoke about McGregor's injury during Monday's episode of "Deep Waters."
"I thought it couldn't have happened to a better guy," Poirier said. "That injury couldn't have happened to a better guy. Earlier this week, he said karma is a mirror, and it definitely is. This guy is a dirtbag, and I don't know if it was nervous energy or what. I don't know why you would start a fight like that. They're saying this was planned to start the fight like that, and there's footage of him training to open the fight with this jump kick. But I just don't understand why you would do that. It's like a Hail Mary, you're throwing a Hail Mary to start a 25-minute fight. I don't understand what was going on with that.
"He's not 25 anymore. He's 37, and he hasn't fought in five years. I haven't seen the results of the medical scan or anything they've done, but if it's a torn ACL after being away for five years, if it's an ACL tear? That's another year. The guy is done. He's done if he has a torn ACL."
"You're throwing a Hail Mary to start the fight" - @DustinPoirier
— UFC on Paramount+ (@UFConParamount) July 13, 2026
Why do you think Conor McGregor opened with the flying kick to start off the fight? 👇 pic.twitter.com/jVoSSlq89p
Chris Weidman disagreed with Poirier's assumption that fans would never see McGregor back in the Octagon, though he did admit that the mystique that made McGregor special is likely gone.
"He's done, he's not going to be the same," Weidman said. "I do think he comes back. He's got one fight left on his contract. I don't think it's going to be the same. I don't think the excitement and the expectations are going to be the same ever again."
McGregor tore his ACL in his first fight with Holloway all the way back in 2013. Despite the injury, McGregor continued fighting that night, taking a dominant decision in just the second fight of his UFC career.
The difference between continuing with a knee injury in the first Holloway fight and not in the second stood out to Din Thomas.
"I don't think he really even wanted to fight," Thomas said. "I don't think he wanted to fight, man. I think he is, in a way, playing on this sympathy card from some people. Obviously, a lot of people are making fun of him and saying this, that and the third to him. There's a bit of sympathy, even you guys are like, 'Oh, this poor guy.' Yeah, it sucks to go out like that. But, at the end of the day, he tore his knee in the first fight and still fought. In this one, to me, as soon as he tore it, he dropped down, gets up, stumbles around, and starts looking at the ref like, 'I can't do this no more.'"
After Jorge Masvidal agreed that, "It's not the spirit he had in the past. His spirit in the past, he fought through it." Thomas continued to pile on the criticism.
"His spirit in the past, he fought through it, and this isn't me making this up," Thomas said. "This is what he told us. He told us he was going to have the greatest comeback. He said he didn't go nowhere. He said these things. But when it got tough, and he tore his leg, he wanted out. He wanted out.
"What did Carlos Ulberg do? What did Thiago Santos do? He tore both knees against Jon Jones, he fought through it."
Weidman provided some pushback to the idea that it's easy to continue a fight with a severe injury. Weidman suffered a horrific leg break in a 2021 fight with Uriah Hall, similar to the broken leg McGregor suffered in his trilogy fight with Poirier that led to five years on the sidelines before Saturday's return.
"This is a little bit different, only because it happened on the first move in the fight, so adrenaline isn't going," Weidman said. "The first time, against Max Holloway, he was trying to pass guard in the second round, and the knee popped. The juices are still flowing, and you're in the fight; he's winning the fight, so he pushes through. Carlos Ulberg, that's a close parallel."
Ultimately, the one area where the entire crew could find agreement was that McGregor's age and time away from fighting were on full display.
"Listen, Father Time is undefeated," Poirier said. "And let's just be honest and blunt. He looked old. He looked old, man. He looked old, and it's not the Conor we've seen in the past. It's not the Conor we expected. We were all high hopes. We were hoping. But you're coming off of a five-year layoff, you're coming off a serious injury, and you're aging. You've been in the game a long time. He looked old, man."
