Andrew Ravens
Conor McGregor is not shy about his self-assessment, and ahead of his UFC 329 return against Max Holloway on Saturday, he made one of the boldest claims of his career.
Speaking to ESPN MMA’s Brett Okamoto during fight week, McGregor argued that the evidence of his featherweight career has been consistently undervalued in rankings conversations. He also placed himself above virtually everyone in the history of the 145-pound division.
“This ranking system for the greatest featherweights, I’ve beaten these men and haven’t been on the list. How have I beaten these men easily and handily, and yet been kept from the list?” he said. “What is the skill? Who is the greatest? Who is the best? It is me, and the results show this.
“It’s not like the fights weren’t there; it was just elsewhere. It was divisional changes, which originally were not for me. It was a fighter pulling out and things of that nature that led to it. I understand it, but I don’t agree with it,” McGregor added. “I am the greatest featherweight since Bruce Lee, and Saturday night I will show it.”
McGregor is a former UFC Featherweight Champion and enters Saturday’s fight at welterweight — two divisions above where Holloway typically competes at featherweight — after a five-year layoff. His last octagon appearance before this weekend was in 2021, when he suffered back-to-back losses to Dustin Poirier.
His original comeback attempt against Michael Chandler at UFC 303 in June 2024 never materialized, and the UFC handed him an 18-month suspension in 2025 for failing to disclose his whereabouts for drug testing on three occasions. His prior win over Holloway came in August 2013, a span long enough that both fighters have evolved considerably since their first meeting.
