These are weird times for the ‘Notorious’ Conor McGregor.
The Irish sports star came into his bout with Max Holloway at UFC 329 in July with muted fanfare, as UFC tried its best not to give oxygen to McGregor’s decade of past controversies. They did this despite their former champ-champ being found liable for rape in an Irish civil court
in 2024.Despite best efforts to present McGregor as his best self, the 38 year-old came into the Octagon looking old and tired. Heblew his knee outon his first foray
forward and was forced to fold in the middle of the cage, before a thoroughly bemused Holloway. The ACL injury he suffered that night required surgery and will mean another long wait before McGregor gets back in the fighting arena.
The Holloway fight was the penultimate bout on McGregor’s UFC contract. Whether he gets another fight, and a chance at liberation, is up in the air.
Eddie Alvarez is one man who knows exactly how tough these kinds of situations can be. ‘The Underground King’ was subject of legal action from Bellator when he jumped ship to join UFC in 2014. All the stress of that departure was worth it in the end, though, with Alvarez winning the UFC Lightweight title two years later.
He would, of course, drop that belt in his first defense;to a prime McGregor.
Alvarez told MMA Junkie that his former foe is likely trying to fight out of his contract at UFC. He doesn’t think that’s going to go very easily for him, though.
“No. 1, he’s UFC’s biggest bargaining chip,” Alvarez said. “Do they really just go down without a fight and just give him a fight and say, ‘Go.’ I’ve been there with Bellator. I got sued before they let me leave. Are they going to agree upon a matchup because at this point if you say you want to leave the company, you are public enemy No. 1.”
Alvarez then laid out what he thought, based on past experience, UFC’s playbook would look like for booking McGregor’s last fight.
“So [the UFC’s] whole goal is to get you beat in such a way that you have no value outside this company,” Alvarez claimed. “Are they going to agree on a matchup? The matchups they’re going to give him, he’s not going to want. He’s not going to want them. Is the UFC going to say, ‘Let’s get rid of our $100 million man and let him go on his way’? It doesn’t work that way in any dealings I’ve ever had in the last two decades. It never went that way. The minute you say you’re leaving the company it’s like there’s always a little bit of butting heads.”
Alvarez left UFC in 2018. His last fight there was a second round TKO loss to Dustin Poirier. That happened seven months after he finished Justin Gaethje with a third round TKO. Alvarez then had a less than stellar run with ONE and then BKFC.
At this point McGregor would probably jump at the chance of competing at BKFC, a company he owns a stake in. Whether UFC lets him do that, without taking a hellacious beating on the way out the door, remains to be seen.
