Dana White Wants to ‘Hopefully’ Get Conor McGregor Back in the UFC This Summer

Dana White still has some optimism that Conor McGregor will eventually return to the Octagon, “hopefully” by the summer of 2018.

“I haven’t talked to Conor about fighting,” White said on ESPN’s SportsCenter Thursday. “We talked about other things. Like I said before, he made a lot of money and I’m sure him and his family had an amazing Christmas. Let’s get through the holidays and hopefully he starts to get the itch to come back and hopefully we can get him back this summer.”

That is a slightly different stance than White took earlier this year, when he speculated that McGregor ”might never fight again.” The Irish superstar is coming off a career-best payday believed to be in the neighborhood of $100 million for boxing Floyd Mayweather on Aug. 26. He hasn’t competed in the UFC since November 2016. White believes that money won’t be the main issue when it comes to finalizing any kind of negotiations with McGregor.

“Money is always a factor but we’ve never had a problem getting a deal done with Conor McGregor. I don’t see that being a problem,” White said. “The question is does he want to come back and do it? No matter how much money you make, I always feel like with certain people you can only go on so many vacations, there’s only so much stuff you can buy and then you’re ready to get back to the grind, hopefully.”

McGregor himself recently told TMZ that he wants to do MMA next. However, his name is consistently linked with boxers like Manny Pacquiao, Paulie Malignaggi and even Mayweather. Additionally, a potentially lucrative trilogy bout in the UFC with Nate Diaz looms large.

According to White, a lightweight unification title bout would be the first order of business if and when McGregor makes his UFC return.

“What we have to do, is he needs to defend that title,” White said on FS1’s “Undisputed.” “Nate isn’t even in the title picture….that’s one of those fights that shouldn’t have been made in the first place, but it happened at that time. It was great, an amazing fight and people loved it. So somewhere down the line there’s a possibility for a trilogy, but right now he has to defend his title against Tony Ferguson. Tony Ferguson is the fight right now if he wants to come back.”

"There's only so many trips you can go on, there's only so much stuff you can buy before you start to get bored."@danawhite addresses @TheNotoriousMMA's future pic.twitter.com/0Sh2Dw0ahU

— UNDISPUTED (@undisputed) December 28, 2017