It’s official – Conor McGregor will make his comeback in the Octagon against Donald Cerrone at UFC 246 on January 18th in Las Vegas.
Just days ago the chances of a January return for ‘The Notorious’ appeared to hang in the balance after the promotion announced that February 8th would now be the landing point for their first UFC pay-per-view event of the year with Jon Jones headlining opposite Dominick Reyes.
However, it would now appear that this may just have been a last-ditch negotiation tactic as now UFC 246 returns to it’s original date in January, and with McGregor on-board.
“Conor has signed, and Cowboy is ready to go,” Dana White told ESPN.
McGregor last fought against Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229 last November, where he suffered a one-sided defeat to the current champion that ended with a fourth round neck crank submission.
Prior to that McGregor had won his last two fights, claiming a majority decision win over Nate Diaz and a TKO stoppage against Al Iaquinta, though following that he did then take on his professional boxing debut against Floyd Mayweather Jr and lost via TKO in the 10th round.
As for Cerrone, he’s been far more active than McGregor in recent years, even racking up four fights over the coure of 2019 alone.
His run this year started strongly with a return to lightweight, where he head kick KO’d Alexander Hernandez and then claimed a decision win over Al Iaquinta, but he’s since slumped to a two-fight losing streak with TKO losses against both Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje.
The addition of McGregor vs. Cerrone means that the UFC are indeed starting off 2020 with a bang, although the rest of the card is still very much a work-in-progress, with other notable fights including Anthony Pettis vs. Carlos Diego Ferreira and Maycee Barber vs. Roxanne Modafferi.
