Conor McGregor's UFC return won't happen until the end of the summer at earliest after it was confirmed his season of The Ultimate Fighter would end on August 15.
The Irishman is more likely to fight in September following his return to The Ultimate Fighter where he will face Michael Chandler before they get in the cage in the finale. McGregor has been out of action since July of 2021, meaning that his comeback will definitely take place more than two years since his last fight.
McGregor and Chandler have agreed to meet at welterweight, with UFC boss Dana White making the announcement in a special live stream over the weekend. The Irishman has previously coached on The Ultimate Fighter in 2015, but was never able to fight his rival coach Urijah Faber as he was already booked to face Jose Aldo for the featherweight title.
"We just confirmed the coaches for season 31 of The Ultimate Fighter," White told fans in an announcement on Saturday. " Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler will go head-to-head as the coaches of 'The Ultimate Fighter: Team McGregor vs Team Chandler'. This season premieres Tuesday May 30 and runs through Tuesday August 15 on ESPN the network and ESPN+.
"Then at the end of the season, McGregor and Chandler will fight live on ESPN+ pay-per-view. I do not have a date or a location for that but I will announce it soon. It's early in the year but we have nothing but bad a** events lined up. I'm pumped, so what you need to do is plan which ones you want to go to and I will see you at the fights."
McGregor and Chandler are both coming off losses to Dustin Poirier, and are making the move up to welterweight for the bout. They will be spending a lot of time together filming the reality show, before they meet at the end of the season in a traditional coaches' fight.
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Chandler has been angling for the fight for years since arriving in the UFC and is predicting a stoppage, telling ESPN: “I always visualize a big overhand right or a left hook. That’s the shot that I really want to land every single time, and that’s the shot I’ve seen put guys down so many times in my career, put guys down in training, put guys down a million times in my mind.
"I believe I wear him down a little bit and land a big shot in the second round and take him out. Can’t tell you what’s going to happen, what Conor’s going to show up. We’ve seen a couple different versions of Conor as well and I think Conor somewhat tailors himself, his personality and his ability and willingness to engage in those verbal altercations based on his opponent. I could bring the worst out of him that we’ve ever seen or I could bring the more buttoned-up, businessman Conor. We don’t know.”
The Irishman needs to re-enter the USADA drug testing pool, which will be a further hurdle to the fight, and as of this weekend had yet to do so. Once he does, he will need two negative tests and six months in the pool before he is eligible to compete inside the octagon.
