Key facts
- McGregor tore his ACL and meniscus off the first kick of his July 2025 fight against Max Holloway at UFC 329.
- He announced successful surgery to repair the ACL this past Wednesday and posted a recovery update video this past Friday.
- This is McGregor’s second career ACL injury, after one suffered in his first Holloway fight in August 2013.
- McGregor, 38, has just one fight left on his current UFC contract and has said he hopes to return next summer.
- He cited Dominick Cruz, Georges St-Pierre, Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers as recovery motivation.
- McGregor previously missed roughly five years of action after breaking his leg against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 in July 2021.
Conor McGregor announced this past Wednesday that he successfully underwent surgery to repair a torn ACL suffered during his July 2025 comeback fight against Max Holloway at UFC 329. McGregor injured his right knee off the very first kick of that fight, and MMA Mania reports the eventual diagnosis included two tears in the knee — the ACL and the meniscus. That bout marked McGregor’s first fight in five years, and it did not go well for him beyond the injury itself.
What McGregor said
In a video posted to social media this past Friday, McGregor said the surgery was a success and that he is now on the road to recovery. He described his mindset as unstoppable and unbreakable, saying he walked straight into the pain rather than avoiding it, and framed his rehab as the start of what he called “comeback season.” He added that he plans to figure out what to do with the mohawk he had shaved into his head before the Holloway fight.
The comparisons he drew
McGregor cited former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz, who returned from multiple ACL tears to reclaim his title, and Georges St-Pierre, who also dealt with multiple ACL injuries and, according to McGregor, still moves well enough to do backflips. He said he was unsure whether St-Pierre ever fought again after his second ACL tear. McGregor also pointed to NFL quarterbacks Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers as examples of athletes who recovered from ACL injuries, referring to Rodgers by his first name only in the video according to both MMA Fighting and MMA Mania’s transcriptions.
History of injuries and layoffs
This is the second ACL injury of McGregor’s career. He also hurt his knee in his first fight against Holloway back in August 2013, but still won that bout and returned in July 2014 to beat Diego Brandao, later becoming champion at both featherweight and lightweight. McGregor, 38, has otherwise spent much of the past several years out of the octagon. He broke his leg in a loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 in July 2021 and did not fight again for years. A planned comeback at UFC 303 in 2024 fell through due to another injury, and his return was further complicated by a civil case in which he was found liable for sexual assault later that year.
Contract situation and what’s next
The Holloway fight left McGregor with just one bout remaining on his current UFC contract. MMA Mania notes it is widely expected that McGregor will test free agency once that final fight is complete, given that he is already the UFC’s highest-paid fighter while, by some estimates, still being underpaid relative to the revenue he generates; a fight negotiated on the open market could reportedly be worth more than $100 million. Standard ACL recovery timelines run around a year, and McGregor has said he is aiming to fight again next summer to fulfill the final bout on his contract.
Sources
Featured photo: U.S. Secretary of Defense via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)