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Conor McGregor\u2019s UFC return is likelier to take place in summer than April, according to the former champion\u2019s coach.<\/p>\n
McGregor has not competed since July 2021, when he suffered a broken leg in his second straight loss to Dustin Poirier, but it was announced in February that the Irishman would return against Michael Chandler sometime in 2023. <\/p>\n
A tense saga between the UFC and the United States Anti-Doping Agency has seen that return delayed, however, with UFC 300 in April looking like the probable date of McGregor\u2019s comeback. Until now, that is.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were hoping for April. That was the hope, that was what we were told,\u201d McGregor\u2019s coach John Kavanagh said on The MMA Hour on Monday (13 November). <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd now it seems to be the summertime. I don\u2019t know [why]. That\u2019s literally what we were having a bit of a back and forth [about] today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kavanagh also opened up on the effect that McGregor\u2019s absence has had on the 35-year-old\u2019s mental health, saying: \u201cWell, I was [worried about that], too, I\u2019m not going to lie. But hearing him today, he\u2019s out there finding this great group of training partners \u2014 at least he\u2019s doing that. <\/p>\n
\u201cHey, it\u2019s not quite the same as getting in to compete in front of a large crowd, but at least he\u2019s getting training in, and that\u2019s so important. We heard Volk [featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski] talk about that: \u2018Keep me busy,\u2019 and all that. So, I love to hear that he\u2019s training hard with these guys.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut look, and this is what I was saying to him as well: Yeah, okay, it\u2019s a knockback if we\u2019re hearing it was April but now it\u2019s July, but it\u2019s not the end of the world. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an extra couple of months. It\u2019s not great, but hey, you\u2019re enjoying your training at the moment. Let\u2019s just keep that going. But the sport, you are around for such a short time as compared to… well, I\u2019m not going to try to make a comparison to other sports or whatever, but like [coaches\u2019] careers, we can do this for decades. For fighters, it is a short time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prior to his injury against Poirier, McGregor was knocked out by the American in January 2021 \u2013 as Poirier avenged a knockout loss to McGregor from 2014. <\/p>\n
McGregor\u2019s last win came in January 2020, when he stopped Donald Cerrone inside 40 seconds. That victory marked the end of a two-year lay-off, which followed McGregor\u2019s submission loss to then-lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. <\/p>\n
McGregor previously held the featherweight and lightweight titles simultaneously as the first dual-weight champion in UFC history.<\/p>\n