Conor McGregor says only three fights make sense for his UFC return, and that he “wasn’t happy” with the backlash to one potential opponent.
We’re now into mid-March and still no closer to learning when Conor McGregor will be returning to the UFC octagon, with the Irishman currently busy promoting the new Road House remake alongside Jake Gyllenhaal.
Speaking to Adam Catterall via talkSPORT MMA, McGregor revealed three fighters who are in the front-running for his UFC return: Michael Chandler, Dustin Poirier, and Nate Diaz – although he was taken aback by some backlash to one of these matchups.
Conor McGregor name-drops three opponents for UFC return
Whilst the vast majority of UFC fans are expecting Conor McGregor to return against Michael Chandler in the summer, we are still waiting for official confirmation on the opponent, venue, and most importantly, date.
Talking via the newly launched talkSPORT MMA YouTube channel, McGregor name-dropped three potential opponents for his return fight – the first of which was his TUF 31 rival:
“[Michael] Chandler, of course, I would assume that would be the first one.”
Noting the obvious recency bias, the second name mentioned by ‘Notorious’ was Dustin Poirier, who earned a dramatic comeback KO victory just a few weeks ago at UFC 299 over Benoit Saint-Denis:
“It was good to see [Dustin] Poirier get that win at the weekend, that makes this the quadrilogy – we’ll say the ‘real trilogy’, [that would] really to finish it and put an end to it, that is a huge bout right now…I anticipated that the result would go that way and I was happy to see it, and that’s a great one for sure.”