Conor McGregor says his next fight will be his last one. The former two-division UFC champion made the declaration on X on Sunday while taking shots at Canelo Alvarez’s drawing power, and open.kg has since framed it as McGregor announcing his retirement again.
Here’s what he wrote: “I’m going to actually try to sell the fight for my next one. My final fight. See what numbers I can generate. Keep outdoing my own records.”
That came at the tail end of a longer post sparked by Canelo regaining the WBC super middleweight title against Christian Mbilli on Saturday. McGregor wanted to know how many views, how much attendance and what gate the boxing star pulled, then answered his own question. “Man I outdo ALL of these people in sales,” he wrote. He also claimed he doesn’t even try, which is a bold thing to say right before promising that this time he will.
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Where things stand
McGregor is still recovering from ACL surgery on his knee. According to MMA Fighting, he’s targeting International Fight Week 2027 for his return, and that bout is expected to be the final one on his current UFC contract. No opponent has been named.
The sales bragging has receipts behind it. McGregor holds the UFC pay-per-view record with his fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov, and his boxing match with Floyd Mayweather sits behind only Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao on the all-time list. Nobody is arguing he can’t move units.
Not everyone in his old circle is buying the farewell tour, though. Artem Lobov, his former teammate and training partner who settled a whiskey lawsuit with McGregor in April, replied to a UFC on TNT Sports post about the upcoming fight being the last on McGregor’s deal. “Last fight happened many years ago, now it’s about supporting the habit,” Lobov wrote, before launching into a series of serious allegations about McGregor’s treatment of friends and teammates, each one hedged with the word allegedly. Those are Lobov’s claims, unproven, and McGregor hasn’t responded to them in the sources available.
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Meanwhile, McGregor spent Tuesday night on X sharing a warm Ariel Helwani clip of Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani recalling training with him as a 17-year-old. McGregor’s response was a heart, a prayer-hands emoji and a compliment praising Lebosnoyani as a martial artist. So the mood swings are running on schedule.
Sal’s take
Read the phrasing again. “My final fight” lands in the same breath as the final fight on his contract, and a guy who has spent his whole career turning contract leverage into nine-figure paydays knows exactly how those words sound to a promoter with a deal expiring. Calling it his last fight is the best sales pitch he’s got, and he told you himself he’s going to sell this one. As a betting matter, a fighter coming off ACL surgery with a long layoff and a 2027 target date is the profile I’d fade at short odds every time, and the public will absolutely make him short. If he does step into the Octagon during International Fight Week 2027, I’ll believe the retirement when the contract talks stop.