Conor McGregor may not have a fight on the calendar, but he has spent plenty of time with the sample collectors. According to MMA Sucka, the former UFC featherweight and lightweight champion ranks first among UFC athletes in drug testing so far in 2026. The report’s headline is the whole story, and it’s the useful part. The busiest name in the testing pool belongs to the fighter whose comeback talk never seems to stop.
The only thing the number tells you is that McGregor remains in the pool and is being visited often. It doesn’t tell you a date, an opponent or a weight class. Any of those would need an announcement, and there hasn’t been one in the sources available here.
For context, McGregor is 38, a fact Dovy (@DovySimuMMA) pointed out on X this week in a post listing the ages of several UFC veterans, including Justin Gaethje (37) and Alexander Volkanovski (38). Spinnin Backfist replied by noting that flyweight Joshua Van is 24. Point taken.
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The last time McGregor made a walk to the Octagon, it ended badly. Jose Aldo, speaking to MMA Fighting in September, described McGregor’s recent loss to Max Holloway as an injury result. Aldo said the hype was enormous that fight week, and then the injury took the fight away. He said he wasn’t sure how long McGregor had been out beforehand (“I think he was out for two years, or four, I don’t remember”) and added that the injury would keep him sidelined even longer. Aldo also advised McGregor to drop back to lightweight after competing at welterweight in his recent fights.
Aldo has his own history with the Irishman, of course. McGregor knocked him out in 13 seconds at UFC 194 on Dec. 12, 2015, to take the featherweight title at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. In a recent interview with Mundo da Luta, Aldo said the tears in his locker room that night came from something other than the loss itself. He said Dana White came in and told him McGregor couldn’t make 145 anymore and was moving up to lightweight, so there would be no rematch. “That’s why I was crying,” Aldo said. “Everyone thinks I was crying because I lost. No, I was crying because I knew we weren’t going to fight again.” McGregor never returned to featherweight after winning the lightweight belt.
These days Aldo calls their relationship friendly. “I hope he can come back, recover, and return to the octagon,” he told MMA Fighting.
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My take: Testing volume is a good sign that McGregor’s team is keeping the door open, and I’ll give him credit for staying in the pool instead of quietly disappearing. It still isn’t a booking. If he does come back, I’m with Aldo on the weight. Lightweight is where McGregor won his second belt, and at 38, after an injury loss, he needs a division where his size and his reach still mean something. Bad weight cuts have ruined more comebacks than ring rust has, so he should pick the class he can make cleanly and then fight there.
