Will Conor McGregor return to fight again, and will anyone care if he does? Those are the two big questions coming out of the weekend after McGregor blew his knee out on the first kick thrown in his UFC 329 fight against Max Holloway. The opening bell rang, McGregor executed a ridiculous jumping switch kick, and his leg immediately buckled upon landing.
One minute and seven seconds was all we got before the referee waved things off to the boos of the 20,000 angry attendees who payed top dollar to see McGregor’s disastrous comeback. But things may not be all bad, according to fellow UFC fighter Dan Hooker.
“It’s not the end of the world for Conor, in my opinion,” Hooker said on the latest episode of Submission Radio. “He’s got two fights left on his [UFC] contract, and he got rid of one of them without really getting punched in the head at all. So I can’t say that’s the end of the world for him. Not saying in in any way, shape or form that that’s intentional. And he did sustain some kind of knee injury. I’m just saying it’s not as unfortunate for him as it is for the fans.”
“Obviously, it’s a real heartbreaker,” he added. “You pay hard earned money, everyone’s excited for the return of Conor McGregor, and then you get such an unfortunate ending. But in reality, he wants to box. He’s been saying this for the longest time, he wants to get out of his UFC contract and he wants to box, and he knows that there’s some crazy money out there as a boxer.”
“The boxers out there are getting $100 million,” Hooker continued. “So does this hurt that? I don’t think it does at all, right? I feel like we’re just as excited to see Conor McGregor box one of these big name guys for $100 million as we were before that fight. To force him to squeeze out one more MMA fight where maybe his body’s kind of like -- obviously, boxing is a very difficult sport, but it’s far less taxing all over on your body.”
“Boxers sustain a lot more head trauma than MMA fighters do. The bigger gloves and the duration of fighting twelve 3 minute rounds with the cushion gloves, I feel like they sustain a lot more head trauma. But all over the body, MMA is obviously a lot more taxing on on your joints, and you get niggly on all your ligaments and your knees, and you got your back and your neck. There’s a lot more different places that get fatigued and get injured.”
“So it’s just coming to a point now where maybe his body can’t hold up in the MMA space,” Hooker concluded. “And they should just let him box and earn some crazy money in his last couple of years of fighting.”
The UFC does happen to have a sister-promotion now in Zuffa Boxing that could be the vehicle for a Conor McGregor boxing match. Their business partner Turki Alalshikh has expressed interest in having McGregor box for him, and even tried to set up a Conor McGregor vs. Terrence Crawford fight at one point.
Simply put, boxing seems like a realistic option for McGregor, while getting through an MMA fight these days does not.
