McGregor confirms two-fight deal with UFC through April 2027, open to free agency depending on next offer
The Irishman wants both fights in 2026, plans to test the open market afterward, and frames the renegotiated terms as a compromise.
August 17, 2013 – Conor McGregor punches Max Holloway in their UFC featherweight bout at TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC)
Conor McGregor says he has two fights left on his UFC contract. The first is the long-teased return against Max Holloway at UFC 329 on July 11 at T-Mobile Arena. The second, by his own account, is locked in for April 2027.
McGregor confirmed the timeline on The Ariel Helwani Show on Uncrowned this week, and he isn’t pretending to love the spacing. “I have both dates for my fights,” he told Helwani in studio. “I have July 11. When would you think they would put me back in? April 2027. It’s almost a year later. That’s ridiculous to me, I think, no? This is the way the contract was done.”
He’d prefer to fight twice in 2026, close the contract out, and roll straight into a new deal. “I don’t care who the opponent is,” he said. “Give it to me at the end of the year. July, end of year. Boom. Let’s go to a new deal. And then f*cking April. How many weeks in a year? 50-f*cking-2. So 52 fights, a fight a week. I want to get going here.”
That gap matters. McGregor (22-6) hasn’t competed since breaking his leg in a TKO loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 in July 2021, which means UFC 329 will mark roughly five years out of the cage. Stretching the second fight to April 2027 means he’ll close out his current contract having fought just twice across nearly six years.
On the contract itself, McGregor described the renegotiated terms as a mutual compromise tied directly to the UFC’s new Paramount+ media rights agreement, which restructured the promotion’s economics earlier this year. The deal he and his manager Audie Autar landed in that cycle isn’t what he was asking for, and isn’t what the UFC was offering. “We met in the middle,” he said. “Was it what my worth is? Probably not. Was it what they wanted to offer? Definitely not. We met in the middle. I’m a fair operator. So that’s how I operate. I love the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and I’d love to continue. Let’s see how it goes.”
That exit at the back of the deal is the part agents and rival promoters will circle. McGregor said he intends to test free agency once the contract expires, unless the UFC comes back with what he called “an unbelievable deal.” He also said he’d prefer to stay. Both can be true, and in practice, both are leverage.
“I hope it’s with the UFC. I hope we come to something. I hope I get honored even more. I’m going to prove even more so what I’m about.”
The Holloway booking gives the structure some weight. UFC 329 is slated as the International Fight Week headliner at welterweight, a rematch of their 2013 featherweight bout, which McGregor won by decision after tearing his ACL mid-fight. Holloway is coming off a unanimous-decision loss to Charles Oliveira at UFC 326 in March, where he dropped the BMF title on s
cores of 50-45 across the board. He arrives off a defeat. McGregor arrives off five years of nothing. The marketing writes itself.
The April 2027 date, assuming it holds, would close out one of the more commercially significant contracts in the sport’s history. McGregor’s pay-per-view footprint, even in absentia, has remained a reference point for how the promotion values returning stars. Whether the next deal is negotiated with the UFC or anyone else, the number attached to it is expected to be a benchmark other headliners point to. The TKO boxing project that signed Conor Benn earlier this year, in particular, is the kind of in-house alternative McGregor’s camp may reference at the table.
There’s also the matter of what “two fights” actually looks like in practice. McGregor has booked fights before that didn’t happen on the date announced. A 2024 bout with Michael Chandler was scrapped after he withdrew citing a toe injury, and the rematch chatter around that pairing eventually went quiet. A contract that runs to April 2027 with only two scheduled appearances leaves little margin for another delay.
McGregor himself sounded uninterested in dwelling on it. “I’ve got the fight, I’ve got the date, I feel great. Bring it on, baby. The Mac is back, and I’m putting on a show here in this fight.”
For now, the schedule reads cleanly: Holloway in July, an unnamed opponent in April 2027, and a free-agent conversation after that. McGregor has handed the UFC a deadline and told everyone else to be ready with an offer. The next move belongs to Dana White and Hunter Campbell, and the clock starts in less than a month, with the second fight roughly ten months behind it.