Conor McGregor Can’t Wait to Fight Bare Knuckle After UFC
Conor McGregor says he cannot wait to fight bare knuckle once he is free of his UFC contract. He has one fight left. Then, in his words, the Mac Daddy is free.
“Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship is unstoppable at the moment,” McGregor said. “What a few months we’ve had. God bless it, God bless true fighting. I can’t wait to do it. One more to go and the Mac Daddy is free.”
That is not a signed BKFC bout. It is the former two-division champion telling the sport where he wants to go when the paper runs out. He has been a part owner of Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship since 2024. He is still under UFC contract. Those two facts have been in tension for two years. He just said the tension has an ending.
The remaining fight is the last obligation after UFC 329. McGregor’s return against Max Holloway on July 11 lasted 69 seconds. He tore his ACL and meniscus on the first real step, the referee stopped it, and the night counted as a completed bout. He went from two fights left to one. He has had surgery. A UFC date has been discussed for April 2027, with a window that could stretch later depending on the knee.
He has not won since January 2020, when he knocked out Donald Cerrone. The losses to Dustin Poirier and the injury stoppage against Holloway sit on the other side of that line. He is 38. Star power does not expire on a medical report, and he is still the biggest name the UFC ever made. Free agency is where that name becomes a bidding war.
BKFC is the place he already has equity. He called it true fighting. He called the last few months unstoppable. He did not name an opponent. Mike Perry is on the roster. The promotion has been chasing crossovers for years. None of that is a contract for McGregor in the knuckle. It is a runway he owns a piece of.
Eddie Alvarez, who lost the lightweight title to McGregor in 2016, has already warned what the last UFC fight can look like. Alvarez’s view is that once a star says he is leaving, the matchups get worse on purpose. That is Alvarez talking, not the UFC. McGregor has not said he is refusing the final booking. He has said he cannot wait for the one after it.
Boxing talk will follow him anyway. Jake Paul is hunting a 2026 or 2027 return. Nate Diaz still sells a trilogy. Croke Park in Dublin is the stadium line that never dies. McGregor put bare knuckle first in this clip. The Mac Daddy line is the tell. He is counting fights like a prisoner counts days.
The UFC will want that last night to mean something. A homecoming. A welterweight. A name that still fills an arena even if the knee is a question. McGregor will want it over. One more, then BKFC, then whatever else free agency can print. He has talked about being free before and stayed. This time the math is public: one fight, then the contract is done.
Bare knuckle will not make him a champion in the way the octagon did. It will make him a spectacle in a sport he partly owns, with no gloves and a crowd that already treats him like a founder. That is the product he is selling while he rehabbs. The product the UFC still owns is the last night in the cage.
He cannot do both at once. He said he cannot wait. The knee, the commission, and the remaining bout will decide when “free” stops being a caption. Until then, the Mac Daddy is still a UFC fighter with one left, talking about the promotion he intends to walk into when the last one is over.