“I’m walking out there 100% as Conor McGregor” 🇮🇪
Conor McGregor joins Dan Hardy in the Cage to talk about his upcoming fights with Sinead Kavanagh and Michael Chandler.#BellatorDublin
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— Bellator MMA (@BellatorMMA)
June 22, 2024
Conor McGregor was in the public eye over the weekend, attending the Bellator Champions Series in Dublin to support his SBG Ireland teammate Sinead Kavanagh.
It also meant the Irish star had the opportunity to address the severity of the broken toe that forced him to withdraw from his scheduled bout against Michael Chandler in the main event of UFC 303. The former two-division champion has not competed since breaking his foot in a loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 in July 2021.
“The injury is nasty. It hurts,” McGregor told SevereMMA in a backstage interview at Bellator Dublin. “I’m not gonna lie, it hurts very, very much. It probably hurts more than my leg, that’s the truth. To explain why, at least my leg was bandaged up. I couldn’t reach it. My leg is still there, it’s kind of exposed. So it hurts a little bit, but that’s just how it is.”
McGregor, who arrived at the 3Arena in slippers instead of shoes, has already set a timeline for when he will return from his broken toe, and the “notorious” fighter also revealed that the injury has caused a lot of swelling while treating it.
“August, September, I [that]”I’m still recovering. It’s been exactly three weeks, three weeks today,” McGregor said. “I’m still rocking in my slippers. Thankfully, the slippers aren’t too bad and they’re comfortable, but I still can’t wear shoes. I’ve had stem cells put in my foot. I’ve had stem cells taken from my back and transplanted into my foot. I’ve had 20mg of stem cells taken from the bone marrow in my own back and transplanted directly into the fracture site.”
“My damn toe hurts and I don’t know if I made the right decision to put stem cells in the fractured area because it’s like when girls get fillers in their faces and that’s what my damn pinky toe is like. I don’t think it’s swelling anymore. I think it’s from the stem cells in my toe.”
McGregor remains optimistic that he will recover from his injury relatively quickly, but the question remains how UFC’s biggest star will fit into the rest of the summer schedule. UFC 305 is scheduled for August 17 in Perth, Australia, and is already scheduled to feature a middleweight championship main event between Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya. Meanwhile, UFC appears to have other plans for UFC 306, which will take place at The Sphere in Las Vegas.
At this point, UFC CEO Dana White doesn’t want to speculate on where McGregor fits into that itinerary.
“I don’t know right now. It’s scheduled. We’ll see,” White said at the post-fight press conference at UFC on ABC 6. “Until we know Conor is healthy, we’re not doing anything. It’s not even worth talking about.”
“What about September? What about October? He’s not ready yet. So why are you telling me all this?”
This is essentially the same position White took in a recent interview with the Sports Business Journal, and with that in mind, White would consider the possibility if he knew McGregor was available to compete.
“Right now I’m not thinking about Conor fighting anybody,” White said. “There’s no time frame or anything. McGregor is still recovering and he’s injured.”
