With The Notorious himself claiming he’s on track to return to the UFC this July, the organization’s president has weighed in. Dana White pointed out that, although Conor McGregor has significant say in what he does next as the UFC’s biggest star, he’s not the only one who gets to call the shots. Assuming McGregor returns to compete at lightweight, whoever is champ at the time will ultimately decide whether the Irish superstar gets to fight for the 155lb strap he once held.
White told The Underground that while Charles Oliveira seems to want the fight, there might well be another champ with another opinion on the matter by the time Conor comes back.
Dana White: McGregor Lightweight Title Shot Depends on Champ
“It’s gonna depend on who the champion is. The champion has some say in that, too. Who’s gonna be the champ when Conor McGregor comes back? And what do they wanna do?
If you look at Oliveira, right, if it’s still Oliveira by the time he comes back, maybe Oliveira wants Conor. Who knows? I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.”
Conor McGregor captured the lightweight title back in 2016, dispatching then-champ Eddie Alvarez with the brutal knockout power that fuelled his meteoric rise through the UFC rankings. In doing so, McGregor became the UFC’s first ever simultaneous two-division champ, having previously defeated Jose Aldo in only thirteen seconds to win the UFC featherweight title.
However, in the intervening six years since, McGregor has not won a single fight at lightweight, instead losing to Khabib Nurmagomedov once and Dustin Poirier twice.
In his last fight, the trilogy match against Dustin Poirier last July, Conor sustained a gruesome broken leg at the end of the first round, losing via doctor’s stoppage. He’s spent the months since recovering, and although the Irishman and his team insist he’ll be ready to fight again this summer, it remains unclear whether Conor McGregor will be able to fight again this year.
“There’s a lot of variables that have to come together for him to come back and fight. No. 1 is health and how’s his leg. Then once that’s 100 percent then we’ll start to figure out where he goes. Because a lot of these — we have fights made all the way up to June 18 already.
Once he’s 100 percent ready to go, we’ll get him figured out and we’ll see what’s what with the lightweight division and we’ll get him figured out.”
Do you think McGregor will get the lightweight title shot this July? Let us know in the comments.
