Dana White said Conor McGregor will fight this summer and insisted the UFC is in a good place with the former champion, offering his strongest public assurance yet that the Irish star is headed back to action. White made the comments in an interview with Jim Rome and said he is extremely confident McGregor will fight this year.
White said McGregor is training now and that there is footage of him working out, adding that he is confident the return can be sorted and the fighter can be ready to roll. The comments came this week as speculation around McGregor’s comeback has intensified, with fans waiting for a possible announcement tied to UFC 329 and International Fight Week in July.
McGregor has not fought since he broke his ankle in the first round of a trilogy bout with Dustin Poirier at UFC 264, a setback that halted his comeback after a two-fight skid. He also lost to Poirier at UFC 257 earlier that year, and his last victory came with a 40-second finish of Donald Cerrone at UFC 246.
The timing matters because McGregor is closing in on his 38th birthday and the window for a return has been narrowing with each missed date. Ariel Helwani shared White’s comments after offering his own recent updates on McGregor’s status, and said a fight announcement should be coming in the very near future.
For now, White’s remarks amount to the clearest signal yet that the UFC expects McGregor back before the summer ends, even as the promotion and the fighter have spent years chasing a comeback that has repeatedly slipped out of reach. McGregor remains one of the sport’s biggest draws, but he has spent far more time outside the cage than in it since that night at UFC 264.