'I'll do three this year': Conor McGregor wants active schedule after UFC 303 return

Former two-division UFC champion Conor McGregor is back in fight mode and wants to make up for lost time.

“The Notorious” will be 10 days shy of a three-year absence from action when he steps into the cage to face Michael Chandler at UFC 303 on June 29. A broken ankle suffered in his trilogy bout against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264, and eligibility due to exiting the anti-doping testing pool led to McGregor’s lengthy stay on the sidelines. Now, the former champ-champ says he’s eager to remain active.

“I’m back, and I’m on a tear,” McGregor told The MacLife. “I’m feeling great. ‘Upgrade the software, without damaging the hardware,’ an old Coach Kavanagh adage. … Training has been going tremendous and I’m excited to get going.”

McGregor will be hunting for his first win since January 2020, when he finished Donald Cerrone in just 40 seconds at UFC 246. He would then go on to lose the rematch and trilogy bouts to Poirier. If things go well against Chandler in June, McGregor wants to get at least two more fights in before the year is done.

“I’ll do three this year: June, September, December,” McGregor said. “… We’ve got Chandler in June, obviously. September, Sphere, is Mexican Independence Day. Potentially someone with a Mexican heritage, maybe a (Nate) Diaz. I think Diaz would be perfect. I don’t know the ins and outs. I kind of thought that would be a lovely one.

“I’m up for anyone. Any one of them, that’s the truth. I don’t really care who it is. I just – I’m back. I want the activity, and I’ve said this before, and God willing, please, this is the time. I feel and I believe that it is. Whoever it is. There’s loads of them that it could be. They’re queueing them. There’s been loads of callouts. So, I’m excited about that. Line them up, and I’m going to knock them down.”