Georges St-Pierre is confident Conor McGregor can compete at a high level again as long as he’s willing to make the necessary sacrifices.
McGregor fights for the first time in five years when he takes on Max Holloway in a welterweight bout that headlines UFC 329 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on July 11. In the lead-up to the contest, McGregor has been saying all the right things about rededicating himself to training, with the goal of rediscovering the form that once saw him win UFC titles in two
divisions.
In an interview with The Break Talk, St-Pierre explained how McGregor can find success again if he’s willing to fully submit himself to the process.
“I think if Conor can put himself back into the grind and be hungry, into that hell zone,” St-Pierre said. “He has to see it in a way that like he’s in the tunnel, but the light is after the fight. I have to go through that journey in order to see the light, but I’m not going to put myself in the light until I’m done with the fight.
“If he puts himself into that zone, we’re going to have a hell of a fight.”
McGregor, who turns 38 just days after UFC 329, has remained in the headlines since his most recent fight in July 2021, though not always for the right reasons. During his time on the sidelines, McGregor was found liable for sexual assault for an incident that occurred in Dublin in 2018 and made a failed attempt for a bid in the 2025 Irish presidential election. He also became a part-owner of BKFC and starred in a Road House remake alongside Jake Gyllenhaal.
Now, it’s on McGregor to prove that there are still remnants of the fighter who scraped and clawed his way to becoming the biggest star in MMA history.
“You know, we talk about fighters that try to make a comeback sometimes, like Conor McGregor is going to try to make a comeback,” St-Pierre said. “I think if he wants to be successful, because it’s hard once you made it—you’re a millionaire, you wake up in a nice bed, warm—to go back into a discomfort zone, but you need to be willing to do that.
“You need to be willing to go through an army of guys that are waiting for you in the gym to kick your ass. You need to go through that in order to prepare yourself the best you can for what the fight will be. And sometimes if you’re wealthy, you’re the boss, you decide the conditions on which you will be put into. I don’t think it’s the right way.”
In his prime, McGregor was one of the most feared knockout artists in the UFC, scoring devastating knockouts over Jose Aldo, Eddie Alvarez, Donald Cerrone, and others. However, he has competed sporadically since 2016, winning just one of four fights during that stretch, that lone win being a knockout over Cerrone in January 2020.
St-Pierre believes McGregor’s comeback will only go as well as he allows it to.
“He certainly has the skills to do it if he really wanted to,” St-Pierre said. “The question is just that he needs to put himself into that position. Not be the boss, let your coach be the boss, because when you fight, it’s a very unpleasant environment. You don’t control nothing, there’s a lot of stuff that happens. You try to control as much as you can control, there’s a lot of stuff that you do not control, so you want to recreate that environment. But if you’re trying to always control everything in your training the way you want and not let your coaches do that for you, to put you in hell, that’s a problem because it’s not reality. You need to prepare yourself for something that resembles, as much as you can, what you’re going to be put into.”
