Mailbag: Will Conor McGregor ever fight again? Plus more from the UFC 303 change-up

Well, of all the weekends that have happened, that sure was one of them.

UFC Vegas 93 went down on Saturday night to almost no fanfare whatsoever, and Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen boxed each other to much more fanfare, but somehow even less action than the APEX offered. Mix in those lackluster events with the fact that all hell broke loose around UFC 303 and the now-delayed return of Conor McGregor, and there’s really only one topic on everyone’s minds this week.

Conor McGregor vs. Michael Chandler

If Conor v Chandler does eventually happen, will it have been worth the wait?

So as you all know by now, Conor McGregor was forced out of his planned fight against Michael Chandler at UFC 303 due to injury. The talk is that UFC hopes to rebook the matchup for later this year, but I will simply reiterate the same position I’ve had since McGregor shattered his leg back in 2021: I’ll believe it when I see it.

McGregor is not returning from some run of the mill MCL tear or something like that. This is a catastrophic injury that forces athletes to come face-to-face with their own mortality. McGregor is about to turn 36 years old, he’s richer than cream, and he has family and other things to attend to in his life. On top of that, he’s already been champ in two divisions! He’s not going to have a late-career Robbie Lawler run that redefines his legacy, and he certainly doesn’t need the money, so why come back at all?

“Because he’s a fighter! This is who he is!”

Sure, that tracks if there’s nothing else wrong with him. But there clearly is something wrong. Dustin Poirier has clear, tangible reasons to want to continue fighting AND he’s relatively healthy, but after UFC 302, Poirier is leaning towards retirement anyway out of concern for his health. Now that Conor’s had a setback, at some point doesn’t his family tell him, “Hey, don’t do this. We don’t need it and if something goes wrong, that’s forever.”

If I had to guess, it’s 50/50 McGregor actually fights again. But I guess we’ll see.

But let’s say he does fight and it even happens to be against Chandler. Will it have been worth it? I guess?

Here’s the thing: I don’t care about this fight. At all. Don’t get me wrong, it will probably be a fun fight and it will certainly be big, but that’s true for all McGregor fights. Aside from this being Conor’s return, what’s the draw? There’s not real animosity here, no real rivalry, just one guy trying to come back from injury and another trying to get the rub from him. Sure, that’s fine, but it isn’t something that demands my attention.

I would feel very different if this was McGregor vs. Justin Gaethje or Charles Oliveira, but instead this fight feels akin to Conor’s bout with Donald Cerrone: A reasonable matchup that’s pretty forgettable.

Backups

In an unlikely world where UFC secured a backup fighter for the next scheduled McGregor-Chandler matchup that all parties agreed to, regardless of who’s forced to pull out, what’s your best guess as to who that fighter would be?

This would never happen because Chandler isn’t going to fight anyone not named Conor at this point unless Conor retires. But if somehow it did, their are only two people who would make any sense at all: Justin Gaethje and Charles Oliveira. Both men are big enough stars to keep Conor around and both have a history with Chandler. Maybe you could add Max Holloway to the list, but rumor is he turned that opportunity down for UFC 303 because of his featherweight title aspirations, and I don’t think Conor would fight him again, honestly. Max would annihilate Conor in a rematch, so that would be bad career management.

Matchups

Which fight is more likely to occur:

Conor vs. Chandler, Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic, Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul

Jones vs. Miocic is the fight that’s most likely to happen from these three because Jones, Stipe, and Dana White (and literally no one else) will force it down our throats come hell or high water.

This time last year, a Jones vs. Miocic matchup was pretty silly but everyone was fine with it because it made some sense. A year later, it is obviously idiotic but White would rather get struck by a meteor than admit that, so these two men will fight, whatever it takes.

Tyson and Paul are next as they both seem to really want this to happen. The big blocker here is that at some point reason the powers that be won’t allow a near-60-year-old man to fight someone in his athletic prime.

Then it’s Conor vs. Chandler for all the reasons previously mentioned.

Next man up

Since no one is surprised by Conor pulling out, do you think there’s a man on the roster to rise to his level of superstardom? Who becomes the next red panty night guy?

Short answer: No. Conor is a once in a generation superstar. Those don’t grow on trees and it basically required a perfect storm of things to converge to get him to this stage. Hell, if you had a time machine and could re-run McGregor’s career 100 times, I don’t think you ever get back to how big he is in this iteration. Conor high-rolled every possible outcome for like four years straight. Credit to him for that, no one is getting back to that anytime soon.

Longer answer: If someone is going to do it, it’s Ilia Topuria. Four million Instagram followers, hanging out with true global superstars, getting the rub from Real Madrid, one of the biggest brands in the world — that’s all SUPERSTAR stuff. And he’s only 27 years old. If Topuria beats Max, beats Alexander Volkanovski again, moves up and claims the lightweight title — buddy, you’re looking at the biggest star since Conor. Then all he needs is to get a crossover boxing match with Canelo Alvarez and not get knocked out in the first three rounds, and BOOM, he’s the next Conor.

So yeah, no one is getting to Conor level again. Not until MMA becomes the biggest sport on the planet, which it will never be.

Alex Pereira

Where does Alex Pereira rank among the UFC’s greatest ever signings?

So, with Conor out of UFC 303, Dana White and company only had one option: Turn to the man who seems to always be saving their asses these days, Alex Pereira.

Pereira now headlines UFC 303, putting his light heavyweight title on the line against Jiri Prochazka in a rematch, and while these aren’t ideal circumstances, the fight is going to kick ass because neither of those dudes know anything other than that. Legitimately, UFC 303 is better today than it was last Monday, at least from an in-cage perspective.

And with Pereira once against serving as UFC’s savior, it surges him up the ranks of all-time greatest signings by the promotion. McGregor is almost certainly No. 1 on that list, Ronda Rousey is No. 2 (but I’m not actually sure she was signed or if she was just acquired as part of the Strikerforce buy), and Brock Lesnar is No. 3, but there’s a case for Pereira after that.

Of course, one way to interpret this is to simply do a list of biggest stars in UFC history but that kinda misses the point. Signing prospects who turn into stars is more good development than it is good signing. And while there’s some of that with Pereira, it feels a lot more like he was a star that has simply exceeded expectations, akin to Lesnar.

And when you think about it through that lens, it seems like A LOT of UFC signings of that ilk don’t pan out. For every Michael Chandler there’s a Will Brooks. And while there might be other signings that have gone on to accomplish more than Pereira has (even though the man has accomplished an ABSURD amount in a short time), there haven’t been many that have been as pivotal.

In the past 12 months, Pereira was co-main event of a pay-per-view, headlined a Madison Square Garden event, headlined UFC 300 on short notice, and now is stepping in again on short notice to save the International Fight Week card. That’s about as valuable as one man possibly can be for a promotion.

UFC APEX

What is the ideal number of fights to take place on an MMA card? 11 like this Apex card? More? Fewer?

I figure we’ll end here after what I truly believe is the worst UFC event ever assembled intentionally (doesn’t include cards where the main event fell out last minute due to injury).

The APEX is terrible but I’m not going to harp on it. We’ve done plenty of that here at this website. But the thing is, it doesn’t have to be terrible. I’m entirely open to the idea of fights in an empty gymnasium. Not ever card needs to be a pay-per-view and they certainly don’t all need to have a raucous crowd. I am comfortable with the APEX as part of the UFC fan experience, but they just need to do better. And fans seem to be coming around to this after watching the WWE actually try and make something that seemed to be received well.

Here’s my longstanding pitch to UFC that I sincerely hope they move to one day.

1. A set UFC schedule of 40 events per year. Each month, the UFC hosts one PPV event, one Fight Night event on the road, one event in the APEX, and one off weekend every month. For May, June, July, and August, you remove that off weekend for a Summer Schedule, filling in the open spots with two APEX cards and two road shows.
2. No APEX card has more than 10 fights. Truly, no fight card should last eight hours but I’ll settle for at least keeping the APEX events to under six.
3. Bring in real seating and make ticket prices affordable. Enough with the empty gym. Small venues are actually great for watching fights, if you fill them with people. Every APEX event should be a sellout and should look like a midwest regional show instead of this weird TopGolf style suite experience that they cater to instead.

There. I fixed the APEX. Someone at UFC needs to hire me as a Minister of Good Ideas.

Thanks for reading, and thank you for everyone who sent in tweets (Xs?)! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck, because you can send your tweets to me, @JedKMeshew, and I will answer my favorite ones! Doesn’t matter if they’re topical or insane, just so long as they are good. Thanks again, and see y’all next week.