Conor McGregor recently declared that he would return to the UFC in January, but though talks have taken place, new scheduling changes from the promotion have now led to concerns that he won’t be making his eagerly awaited comeback in early 2020 after all.
UFC 246 on January 18th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas had been earmarked for McGregor’s return, and indeed a number of fights had been signed for that show, but a fight with ‘The Notorious’ – which was rumored to be against Donald Cerrone – wasn’t one of them.
Now there’s been a further troubling twist as the promotion have now named February 8th in Houston, Texas as the landing spot for UFC 246, the first PPV of 2020, instead with the talk being that the January 18th show may be downgraded to ‘Fight Night’ status due to McGregor’s absence.
The Houston, Texas show had originally been planned as UFC 247 and already has a big main event title fight with Jon Jones set to go up against Dominick Reyes, while the co-main event is also set as flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko battles Katlyn Chookagian.
It could be that this is just a negotiation tactic from the UFC, trying to put pressure on McGregor to sign on the dotted line for the January pay-per-view, but time is running out if they want to promote an event of that magnitude properly, so with each passing day the likelihood that they can come to an agreement diminishes.
