Conor McGregor says surgery is next after the knee injury that stopped his return to the Octagon at UFC 329. The fight with Max Holloway was over in 69 seconds, and McGregor wrote that his next steps are “Surgery. Prehab. Return to martial arts practice. Go again.”
That makes the injury the immediate story now, not the comeback itself. McGregor had spent five years away from the cage before stepping into the main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on July 11, and he left with a recovery plan instead of a result.
McGregor said he had no injury going into the fight. He said he was throwing kicks, planting and jumping through camp and backstage before the bout, and dismissed the idea that he was off while walking in as nonsense. In the same post, he said he was in shock and insisted he would overcome the setback, not be deterred and return.
Dana White described the layoff as rough in a fight sport and said the UFC and its doctors were assuming McGregor had blown his ACL. The mismatch in the two versions is the hard edge of the story: McGregor says the problem came out of nowhere, while the UFC chief is treating it as a serious ligament injury that would explain why the fight ended so quickly.
For McGregor, the next phase is now straightforward even if the medical timeline is not. He has said surgery, prehab and a return to practice are ahead, and that is where the comeback stands after a fight that ended almost as soon as it began.
