The whole MMA world has been watching and waiting for the same announcement for five years. And after UFC Seattle on March 28, Dana White finally gave the clearest update yet — while simultaneously cooling everyone down.
Asked directly at the post-fight press conference whether Conor McGregor would fight in July, White did not say no. He did not say yes either.
What he said was this: “Possibly. Nothing is done. Nothing is even remotely close to being done. I am optimistic.”
That one sentence — optimistic but nothing close to done — captures exactly where the McGregor situation stands right now. Talks are happening.
A meeting between McGregor’s camp and the UFC reportedly went well in March. The July 11 date during International Fight Week in Las Vegas is the target. And yet the contract, the opponent and the official announcement remain entirely unconfirmed.
This is familiar territory for anyone who has followed the McGregor comeback saga for the past four years.
Four days before White spoke at UFC Seattle’s press conference, McGregor himself broke the internet in his own inimitable way. On March 24, he posted two bathroom mirror photos on Instagram with a caption that read: “The rumours are true!
Mr. Confidence returns to save fighting again! Call your grandma! Nanny, we did it! Watch and pay me. See ya’s in the Casinos after, the Mac loves yas all, it’s an honour, it’s light work, it’s easy… Hey @paramountplus, see you guys soon, I’m so excited!”
It was pure McGregor — theatrical, chaotic, impossible to ignore and just ambiguous enough to leave everyone uncertain whether something was genuinely locked in or whether it was the Irishman doing what he has done before — generating headlines while the backend remains unresolved.
The post came directly after respected MMA journalist Ariel Helwani reported on his show that a March meeting between McGregor and the UFC had gone well and that July 11 — International Fight Week — was the working target for his return.
International Fight Week is the UFC’s most commercially significant week of the year. Every July, Las Vegas hosts the biggest card on the annual calendar. Pay-per-views headlining this slot have historically produced the promotion’s highest buyrates and largest gates.
For McGregor, the July 11 date would mean returning to the biggest possible stage with the biggest possible commercial backdrop.
It also gives the UFC several more months to finalise the contract negotiations, which, according to White, are not simple given the shift away from the pay-per-view revenue model following the UFC’s new media deal with Paramount.
Under the old model, McGregor’s pay was tied directly to PPV buyrates — a mechanism that made him the highest-paid athlete in combat sports history on multiple occasions.
Under the new Paramount deal, that structure no longer exists in the same form, and rebuilding a contract framework that satisfies both McGregor and the UFC has significantly complicated the timeline.
The most important recent development in the McGregor return saga was what did not happen. McGregor campaigned loudly and repeatedly for a spot on the UFC Freedom 250 card at the White House on June 14 — an event featuring Ilia Topuria vs Justin Gaethje in what promises to be the biggest night in combat sports history.
He was left off the card entirely.
Dana White explained at UFC 326 that the reason was simple: McGregor cannot justify competing on a card where the UFC has already acknowledged it expects to lose at least 30 million dollars producing the event.
McGregor’s commercial weight is so significant that placing him on a loss-leading card would be a financial mismanagement of the promotion’s biggest asset.
The White House card is a statement event. McGregor needs a money event. Those two things are not the same in 2026.
That left McGregor without a White House date and pushed the comeback conversation squarely into the July International Fight Week window instead.
One of the most significant and underreported elements of the McGregor return story is the anti-doping dimension.
McGregor served an 18-month suspension from the UFC’s anti-doping programme, which he was only deemed eligible to exit in March 2026.
Since the start of the year, he has been the most frequently tested fighter in the UFC — reportedly undergoing tests at twice the rate of any other athlete in the programme.
His eligibility to compete again only formally existed from March 2026. That is a crucial piece of context for understanding why the January and February return rumours were always going to be premature.
The legal and regulatory pathway for McGregor to compete was not fully cleared until this year, which is part of why Dana White’s cautious optimism now carries more weight than similar statements he made in 2024 and 2025.
The opponent conversation has shifted dramatically in recent weeks. For most of 2025 and early 2026, Michael Chandler was considered the near-certain opponent — the two had coached against each other on The Ultimate Fighter Season 31, were booked to fight at UFC 303 in June 2024 before McGregor’s broken toe ended those plans, and the rivalry had been built over years of promotional investment.
Then White publicly closed the door on Chandler. The fight that had been anticipated for so long was officially off the table, at least for McGregor’s comeback bout. Chandler was subsequently booked to face Mauricio Ruffy at the White House card.
With Chandler out, the conversation shifted. Jorge Masvidal emerged briefly as a name — both fighters had campaigned to appear on the White House card, and fans connected the dots. White called the Masvidal matchup “goofy” in a TMZ Sports interview, which was as clear a dismissal as the UFC boss tends to give.
That left Max Holloway.
Helwani reported on his show that Holloway has moved to the front of the queue as McGregor’s likely comeback opponent.
Holloway recently went on his Kick stream and publicly called for the rematch, expressing a desire to avenge his 2013 loss to McGregor. “Max Holloway ain’t playing games,” Helwani said. “He’s confirming right then and there.”
The matchup checks every box the UFC needs for a McGregor return fight. It is a rematch with over a decade of separation — both men are dramatically different fighters from who they were in 2013.
Holloway has established himself as one of the greatest featherweights in UFC history since losing to McGregor, and winning the BMF title before losing it to Charles Oliveira at UFC 326. McGregor has lived an entire second chapter as a global celebrity. The story writes itself.
It would also be a striking-based matchup — exactly the kind of fan-friendly spectacle that makes McGregor fights events rather than just fights.
Chael Sonnen has publicly suggested McGregor will not face Holloway and that the UFC is more likely to bring in a dangerous opponent like Ian Machado Garry — the unbeaten Irish welterweight who trains at the same gym McGregor helped build his career around.
Garry versus McGregor would be a generational handoff fight with enormous Irish commercial weight behind it.
Nate Diaz was the UFC’s preferred option until Diaz himself publicly rejected it on the Theo Von podcast, saying he had no interest in fighting a version of McGregor he considered to be on his last dying leg. That door is formally closed for now.
This is the uncomfortable but necessary question that everyone who has followed this story for four years has learned to ask.
McGregor has been close to returning before. He was close in 2022. He was booked in 2024 and withdrew weeks out. He campaigned for the White House card and was passed over.
The broken toe, the anti-doping complexity, the contract structure changes — each obstacle has been legitimate on its own terms.
The cumulative effect, however, has produced a situation where the MMA world is understandably sceptical about any McGregor return announcement until it is officially confirmed, tickets are sold, and both fighters step on the scales.
Dana White’s “possibly” at UFC Seattle is more encouraging than anything he said about McGregor in 2025. His use of the word “confident” about eventually getting a deal done is a step beyond where this conversation has been. The March meeting going well is a positive sign.
But nothing is done. Nothing is even remotely close to being done. White said so himself.
McGregor returning to the Octagon for the first time in five years would be the biggest event in combat sports in 2026. Possibly the biggest event in combat sports in a decade.
His last fight, the broken leg conclusion of UFC 264 against Poirier, still generated massive attention despite its premature ending.
A fully staged return — against a name opponent, in a proper five-round main event, with five years of absence adding to the mystique — would produce commercial numbers that nothing else on the 2026 calendar can match.
The UFC needs it too. The move to Paramount and the end of the traditional PPV model has changed the financial landscape significantly.
A McGregor event under the new structure would be the first real test of what that model can produce at maximum commercial scale.
How they price it, how they distribute it and how they market it will shape the UFC’s commercial strategy for years.
That is why Dana White is optimistic. That is why he is cautious. And that is why the whole MMA world is watching every press conference and every Instagram post, waiting for the one that finally says it is real and it is happening.
For now: possibly. Nothing close to done. But optimistic.
Five years away. Two failed booking attempts. An 18-month anti-doping suspension has now been cleared.
A White House card he campaigned for and missed. And now the most credible set of return signals the sport has seen since he broke his leg in 2021.
July 11, International Fight Week, Las Vegas. Max Holloway is potentially across the Octagon from him.
A contract that is “not even remotely close” to being done, but a conversation that is genuinely happening and a man running the promotion who says he is confident.
The greatest spectacle in combat sports history is trying to come back. Whether it gets there on July 11 or somewhere later in 2026 depends on decisions being made in rooms the public cannot see. When those decisions are made, the announcement will be impossible to miss.
Until then, we wait. Again.
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