These are strange times for the “notorious” Conor McGregor.
The Irish sports star entered July’s UFC 329 fight with Max Holloway amid muted fanfare as the UFC tried its best not to add oxygen to McGregor’s decade of controversy. They did this despite being former champions Irish civil jury found guilty of sexual assault in 2024.
Despite efforts to present McGregor as his own best me The 38-year-old came into the Octagon looking old and tired. He blew out his knee on his first charge and was forced to fold in the middle of the cage before a thoroughly baffled Holloway. The ACL injury he suffered that night need surgery and that means a long wait before McGregor returns to the fighting arena.
The Holloway fight was the penultimate bout of McGregor’s UFC contract. Whether he gets another fight and a chance to break free is up in the air.
Eddie Alvarez is a man who knows exactly how difficult these situations can be. In 2014, Bellator began a lawsuit against “The Underground King” when he joined the UFC in 2014. All the stress of that departure was worth it, though, as Alvarez won the UFC lightweight title two years later.
Alvarez spoke MMA junkie that his former foe is likely trying to fight his way out of his contract in the UFC. However, he does not think that it will be very easy for him.
“No. 1, he’s the biggest bargaining chip in the UFC,” Alvarez said. “Are they really going to go down without a fight and just give him a fight and say, ‘Go.’ I’ve been there with Bellator. I was sued before they let me leave. Will they settle the game because now if you say you want to leave the company you are public enemy #1.
Alvarez then laid out what he thought, based on past experience, what the UFC’s playbook might look like for booking McGregor’s final fight.
“So the whole point of (the UFC) is to get you beat up so that you have no value outside of this company,” Alvarez argued. “Are they going to make a match? The matches they’re giving him, he doesn’t want. He doesn’t want them. Is the UFC going to say, ‘Let’s get rid of our $100 million man and let him go his way’? That’s not how it works in any deal I’ve ever had. Like there’s always going to be a little head.
Alvarez left the UFC in 2018. His last fight there was a second round TKO loss To Dustin Poirier. This came seven months after he finished Justin Gaethje with a third-round TKO. Alvarez then did less than stellar with ONE and then BKFC.
At this point, McGregor would likely jump at the chance to compete for BKFC, a company in which he owns a stake. Whether the UFC will let him do that without beating the hell out of him on his way out the door remains to be seen.
