Conor McGregor Claims UFC is ‘Holding Me Back’ from Making Octagon Return

Conor McGregor claims that if it were up to him, he’d already have a fight booked in the Ultimate Fighting Championship before the end of the year.

Speaking at a media event hosted by betting site Parimatch in the Ukraine on Tuesday, McGregor detailed his recent difficulties getting a fight scheduled with the Las Vegas-based promotion. As a result, the former two-division UFC champion is hoping to set up a charity MMA event in his home country.

“Funny enough, I just want to compete now,” McGregor said. “I was trying to get the Dec. 14 card, for whatever reason they’ve been holding me back. I’m giving them dates, I’m saying I want to fight this date, this date, this date, this date in a row, and we had opponents selected and everything and they’re just making it very difficult for me for whatever reason.

“So now I’m kind of in a position where I’m attempting to set up a charity event. I’ve done this before in my hometown but I done it in an amateur boxing event at my old boxing club, Crumlin Boxing Club, but I want to do it in mixed martial arts competition also. Create an event, find an opponent, compete, zero prize. I do not care about the prize. The prize is in my home. I have five prizes in my home that I seek to get, I’ve got them. I just want to compete now, I want to come back, I want to get sharp, I want to show the best of myself and continue to climb. So that’s what I am seeking to do. So we are looking to do that sometime in December, hopefully have a charity mixed martial arts event for zero prize. The prize will go to charity, so that’s what we are aiming for.”

McGregor has not competed since suffering a fourth-round submission loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229 in October 2018. Thatwas preceded by a two-year absence from the Octagon as the “Notorious” one pursued a lucrative boxing match with Floyd Mayweather.

Prior to that, McGregor was a regular competitor in the UFC, fighting at least twice a year from 2013 through 2016, a string that ended after he defeated Eddie Alvarez to capture lightweight gold at Madison Square Garden in November 2016.

The Dublin native blamed the politics of the sport for his lack of activity in recent years.

I used to fight every couple of weeks before the UFC came, then it was every couple of months,” McGregor said. “Now the politics of [prize fighting] got involved and it’s almost if I won and then I go off. I do not like that, you can’t be like that in this game. I must continue, consistency is another word, you must be consistent.

“Once we get the first one going and we get past the politics of this, I will continue to go. I’ve faced very little damage inside the Octagon so I’m eager to get going and continue. If I look at the run I had up to Eddie Alvarez when I won the second world title, it was consecutive bouts. Bout, bout, bout, so I went into that Eddie Alvarez fight sharp, aware, fully prepared. And what happened that night, one of the greatest performances in any title fight ever in the UFC. So that’s what we are looking to continue on in the next time. Again, analyze what went wrong in the past, analyze what went right in the past, use it to go forward to the future.”

McGregor has a similar Parimatch-affiliated engagement scheduled for Thursday in Moscow. Wile he did not offer a date for his charity bout or UFC return, McGregor hinted that an announcement of some sort was drawing near, perhaps as part of his current tour.

“We’re very, very close to announcing it,” McGregor said. “Not just yet, but surely over the course of this trip we should have an announcement, so that’s what we were aiming for.”