Conor McGregor’s UFC return ends after 69 seconds with knee injury: ‘I am beyond dark here’ | Conor McGregor

Conor McGregor’s return against Max Holloway at UFC 329 in Las Vegas ended at just 1:09 of the first round Saturday night because of a knee injury.

Fighting for the first time in more than five years, the 37-year-old McGregor flew across the ring with a flying left roundhouse kick when the bout started and landed awkwardly on his right knee.

After attempting to kick and strike Holloway (28-9-0) two more times, it was clear McGregor (22-7-0) couldn’t finish the scheduled five-round welterweight bout.

“I mean, I was expecting at least a one-round war,” UFC CEO Dana White said after the fight. “Who knew what Conor was capable of as far as cardio, whatever else, after a five-year layoff, and there you go. We’re assuming a blown ACL. I’m no doctor, but that’s what I figured when I saw it, and doctors think the same thing too.”

McGregor had come into the fight as the underdog with the bookies.

“What can I say? I had him weak in the knees I guess,” Holloway said. “So much hype. We’ve got to run it back one more time. For it to end like this sucks.”

McGregor, who strolled to the ring to the sounds of the Notorious BIG’s Hypnotize and the roar of the sold-out crowd at T-Mobile Arena, last fought exactly five years and a day before Saturday night.

In what McGregor called “the comeback of all comebacks in sports history”, the bout was a rematch of a 2013 featherweight fight which the Irishman won by unanimous decision.

After the fight, McGregor denied he had been injured in the runup to Saturday’s event.

“I was throwing kicks, planted and jumping, all throughout camp as well as backstage before the fight,” McGregor wrote on social media. “This came out of nowhere. I am beyond dark here. I can only describe it as hell.”

McGregor had not fought since breaking his left leg in a 2021 defeat to American Dustin Poirier. McGregor had been the UFC’s most marketable star before that injury, in 2016 becoming the first to hold two titles simultaneously at different weights. He reportedly earned more than $100m for losing a boxing superfight against Floyd Mayweather Jr in 2017.

He was also embroiled in multiple lawsuits during his time away from the Octagon, and became aligned with hard-right figures during an aborted run for the Irish presidency.

McGregor’s last UFC victory was a 40-second triumph over American Donald Cerrone in January 2020.