Conor McGregor did his best to portray an aura of confidence and self-belief prior to his comeback fight against Max Holloway at UFC 329 this past weekend, but retired fighter Matt Brown believes that in the end it was nerves that got the better of the superstar and led to his fight-ending injury just 69 seconds into the bout.

“The reason that happened, I think Conor was nervous,” Brown said on ‘The Fighter vs. The Writer.’  show. “I thought Max said it perfect — I think he was weak in the knees. He was nervous. I don’t think he looked 100 percent himself. A lot of people have talked about that. I’m not one judge to body language too much, because I’ve made the mistake where you judge body language and then they perform great. I don’t think that’s necessarily the best way to look at it, but he’s always been a man of very, very high confidence, and he lived up to that, to what he always said he was going to do, for so long.

“A lot of that confidence has been taken away from him. So you’re saying all the right things, pumping himself up, feeling great walking into the fight but somewhere deep inside, he knew there’s not evidence to back up all these things that he’s saying. I could beat everybody, I’m this, I’m that, but you haven’t won a fight in five years, you’re on the yacht drinking and your last fight you [broke your leg] and you were losing anyway. All of these things are contradictory to what he’s telling himself. That increases the nervousness, and he might have even been feeling good, but I think deep inside, he was actually nervous.”

Brown is not the only observer to point to McGregor’s nerves, and certainly when watching his pre-fight introduction in the Octagon there was a tangible shift in his body language and demeanor compared to all his other fights in the Octagon over the years, and indeed his bravado earlier during fight week.

And that’s perfectly understandable under the circumstances. The five year layoff by itself was a major challenge in itself, as was going up against such a high-level opponent rather than having a tune-up bout first.

That being said, it does feel like the psychological barrier of stepping back into the Octagon for the first time after suffering a broken leg may have been the biggest hurdle he had to overcome on the night.

Neverthless, McGregor appeared to have already made up his mind to face his fears head-on by immediately throwing a jumping roundhouse kick, perhaps hoping to both make an immediate statement of intent, and also settle his own nerves.

However, perhaps those nerves partly led to him overcommitting to the technique, landed awkwardly, and ultimately dooming his comeback fight to end in disaster due to a knee injury.

“He had the plan to come out with that kick and went for it and with all this said, all respect to Conor,” Brown said. “He does shoot for the stars. He goes for the biggest bag he could get. He chose Max Holloway. That’s a f*cking commendable thing to do. It didn’t work out.”