Conor McGregor seemingly confirms UFC return against Michael Chandler in December

Conor McGregor has seemingly confirmed his return to MMA in December to take on Michael Chandler at UFC 296.

The Notorious’ return to the UFC has been in doubt for some time now with his last fight now over two years prior against Dustin Poirier.

The Irishman suffered a broken tibia in the fight which rendered him unable to continue.

However, there has been serious talk about his return for well over a year now and those talks seemed to be headed in the right direction when McGregor was announced as one of the coaches of The Ultimate Fighter.

His opposition coach for the season was none other than Michael Chandler, and if the previous series were anything to go off it was assumed those two would be facing each other following the series finales.

However, there looked to be a hiccup in the schedule when USADA claimed that the former double-champ had not yet entered the drug-testing pool.

Fighters are required to be in the USADA pool for a minimum of six months before they can fight.

With no news coming by June, it seemed as if a return for McGregor in 2023 was all but off.

But lo and behold, we might actually be getting the return of one of the greatest fighters of all time before the year’s end.

McGregor took to social media to post a screenshot of an upcoming UFC event titled ‘UFC 296: Chandler vs McGregor’.

The event coincides with the presumed return date that had been speculated in recent weeks of December 16th.

So it looks like we are off to the races in the build for this one which is just over three months away.

McGregor had posted an image of his training camp earlier in the day, captioning the photos: “UFC ready.”

No official announcement has yet to be made from the UFC about the fight, however.

Meanwhile, no news has come from USADA on whether McGregor had indeed entered the pool by June this year or whether he had received an exemption to the rule.

But, if anything, it is the biggest indication that the former lightweight champion is finally returning to the sport after such a long layoff.

Featured Image Credit: Getty/@TheNotoriousMMA

Topics: Conor McGregor, UFC, MMA, Michael Chandler

Jayden Collins

Jayden Collins is a Journalist at SPORTbible. He has worked across multiple media platforms in areas such as sport, music, pop culture, entertainment and politics. He is part of the editorial team for LADbible Australia.