Conor McGregor’s comeback appears to have been delayed yet again after Dana White revealed that the superstar won’t return to the Octagon in 2024 after all.
“We talked. We talked,” White told reporters last night. “We didn’t meet up but we talked, and yeah, he wants to fight. So we’ll figure it out.
“[But] not this year. He won’t fight this year.”
That goes against recent claims by McGregor that he was looking to fight Michael Chandler in December, and indeed since reading White’s latest update on the situation ‘The Notorious’ appears to be making it known that he still wants that end-of-year showdown to take place.
“Ah Dana, December is the date!” McGregor wrote on X. “Bring the calendar year home with a winning event!
“Come on now, what’s this? I am off to altitude next month to prepare. DECEMBER! Tell Dana and UFC WE WANT DECEMBER! WE DESERVE DECEMBER!”
The latest twists in this long and increasingly frustrating saga came after Chandler gave an interview in which he was still hoping to fight McGregor in December, but also indicated his willingness to move on if the McGregor fight doesn’t come together.
“I am running my own race, and I’m continuing to move forward,” Chandler told Lucy Block yesterday before the news broke. “I am at the point now where we are looking at all of the options and not just fighting Conor. Things move fast, and the phone could ring at any time. I don’t want to make it sound like I’m not focused on fighting Conor, but right now when no contract is signed, I’m excited to fight. I’m training every day, and I’m in the best shape that I have been in a very long time, and I’m ready to go out there whether it’s Conor or someone else. There’s always going to be life after Conor if this fight never comes to fruition. …
“I’ve always felt that if the Conor fight didn’t happen, I’m going to be just fine, and I will put butts in seats, and I will sell pay-per-views, and I will entertain the entire world when I step inside the octagon.”
