Conor McGregor recently admitted he was left feeling “out-of-the-loop” when Michael Chandler suddenly moved on from waiting to fight him to take a co-main event match-up with former lightweight champion Charles Oliveira at UFC 309 in November instead, but it seems that ‘The Notorious’ still wants his TUF coaching rival to be his opponent when he does finally return to the Octagon.
“Who knows nowadays?” McGregor said during an interview on DAZN last night. “It doesn’t matter, it does not matter. Just as long as I can get back, whoever. I’d like it to be Chandler. I’d like to get that squared away, so I wish him well against Oliveira, but let’s see how it goes.”
Dana White has already gone on record that McGregor will likely fight in early 2025, and though McGregor initially seemed to be pushing to return before the end of the year, it seems he’s now accepted it’ll be next year as well.
“It will be 2025,” McGregor said. “We’ll see. My opponent that I had scheduled, Chandler, has gotten matched. It is what it is. I just take it on board and just rock on. My job is just to go to the gym, be in the gym, be in shape, and one thing is for sure, whenever it is and wherever it is, I’ll be 100 percent ready. That’s all I can focus on right now.”
And as for his longer term plans, McGregor plans to finish up the remaining two fights on his UFC contract and then see what opportunities await him after that.
“It’s the promised land, so we’ll see. I don’t even know. No one in the space knows. I’m the highest-generating fighter on planet Earth right now in today’s space and what happens afterwards, as I’m a free agent, I’m not so sure.”
