Conor McGregor breaks silence after pulling out of Michael Chandler fight

15 June 2024 , 21:18

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Conor McGregor was due to fight Michael Chandler this month (Image: Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)

Conor McGregor has vowed he will be back after pulling out of his return fight against Michael Chandler at UFC 303.

McGregor has not fought since July 2021, when he broke his leg during a bout against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264. The Irishman was set to return to the octagon to fight Chandler later this month, but he suffered an injury shortly ahead of a press conference to promote the event.

The press conference was due to be held in Dublin, but was abruptly cancelled just hours before it was set to begin. No reason was given for the cancellation at the time, but UFC president Dana White announced 10 days later that the fight was off due to McGregor suffering an injury.

And the Notorious has now broken his silence on the fight, insisting he is "confident I'll be back". In a post on social media, McGregor wrote: "Very tough to be ruled out of my scheduled return bout.

"I picked up an injury prior to the press conference that required more time to heal than was available to me. The decision to postpone the fight was not made lightly, but one made in consultation with my doctors, the UFC, and my team.

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"My fans and opponent deserve me at my best for this fight and we will get there! Thank you for the messages of support, I am in good spirits and confident I'll be back!"

The new main event for UFC 303 will see Alex Pereira defend the light heavyweight championship against former champion Jiri Prochazka and White has insisted he is "very happy" with the fight card, despite losing his biggest star.

"I'm very happy (with the quality of the replacement fights)," White told the Sports Business Journal. "It's the business, man. This is the way it goes. And from here on I'm not going to talk about it until when he's healed and he's right. Then we'll look at the landscape and see what we can figure out.

"It's been interesting because we had to switch the Saudi main event, which is next weekend, you know what I mean? It's f****** days away, so for us to put in this guy [Ikram Aliskerov] who is 15-1, he's Muslim and his only loss is to Khamzat Chimaev, and everyone in the division said no to fighting him except Robert Whittaker (is a good result)."

Matthew Cooper