On August 26, 2017, Floyd Mayweather walked away with his 50th victory when he stopped Conor McGregor in the tenth round. While Mayweather retired, the damage inflicted on the Irishman’s career continues to echo. Having had reservations about the path McGregor chose for himself since the epic loss, Joe Rogan believes the former UFC champion has never been the same.

With an aim to cement his legacy, which took a major hit when Dustin Poirier inflicted back-to-back losses, McGregor returned after a five-year absence, only to get himself injured in the headlining bout at UFC 329. With one final fight left in the UFC, the Irish super star now finds himself at a crossroads.

“He’s chasing the high versus is he chasing the dream. So like when he knocked out Jose Aldo, he was chasing the dream,” Rogan said, speaking with Sean Sharaf in JRE’s latest episode. “He was a juggernaut. He was storming through the division. He was knocking everybody out.

“He looked like this guy that had this phenomenal talent and this special charisma, and he looked like a guy who is chasing this, this dream, this dream of becoming a world champion.”

Rogan’s comments came as he was offering career advice to Sean Sharaf. Though an experienced mixed martial arts fighter, the former U.S. Marine is relatively new to the UFC. After two back-to-back losses, Sharaf found himself in the spotlight after he stopped the much-touted Gable Stevenson in the first round of the main card bout in UFC 331.

Speaking with Rogan, he revealed how his journey had been filled with obstacles.

Outlining the choices that he needs to make—whether he wants to move his career forward or simply walk away—Rogan highlighted that one of the worst things a fighter could do to himself is simply chasing glory.

To make his case, Rogan cited Justin Gaethje’s example. After stopping Ilia Topuria in the Freedom 250 headliner, Rogan, like many, believes Gaethje has little to prove. He can walk from the sport, and no one will question it.

From that perspective, however, the situation is different for Conor McGregor.

According to Rogan, the Irish superstar returned to face Max Holloway, likely to showcase that “he could still do it.” By defeating a fighter of Holloway’s stature once again, McGregor perhaps wanted to establish himself as the best MMA fighter.

But the thought process, Rogan speculated, only led to a setback that can be traced back to 2017, when McGregor stepped out of the cage to face Mayweather.

Challenging the boxing icon and seeking a $100 million payday, McGregor aggressively pursued a showdown. However, the proposed crossover drew sharp criticism, with some skeptics pointing to McGregor’s complete lack of professional boxing experience against Mayweather’s unbeaten 49-0 record.

“So then you achieve it, and then I think the big derailment was the Floyd Mayweather fight, right? He leaves MMA, trains boxing for a while, has a great performance against Floyd Mayweather, one of the greatest boxers of all time, and does 10 rounds with him, which is f**king insane,” Rogan added.

A year later, when he returned to the UFC, McGregor’s trajectory began to decline, and he could never really recover.

When “The Notorious” run lost its notoriety

After the memorable loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229, McGregor briefly recovered when he stopped Donald Cerrone in his welterweight debut two years later.

However, the setbacks continued when Dustin Poirier stopped him twice in back-to-back fights in 2021, which also triggered his five-year layoff. As the Holloway fight showed, McGregor did not really recover his old form.

He underwent surgery after suffering a torn ACL and meniscus during the Holloway fight. With McGregor still having one more fight left in his UFC contract, which he apparently wants to fight out, Dana White suggested that the former champion is not expected to return until July 2027.

Considering McGregor’s age and the severity of his injury, many observers and fighters openly doubt whether the Irish icon will ever fight again.

Whether the predicament McGregor finds himself in now was sparked years ago by a fight against a boxing legend, as Rogan and perhaps many others believe, needs a closer examination.

McGregor is not the only one to have experimented with boxing briefly before making a return to MMA. His former opponent, Jose Aldo, after retiring in 2022, compiled a 2-0-1 boxing record before resuming his UFC career in 2024 and later retiring again.

Similarly, Francis Ngannou left the UFC as a heavyweight champion in 2023, faced Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua in boxing, and returned to MMA with the PFL before capturing its heavyweight Super Fights title in 2024.

Taken together, to say that stepping away from the sport, even briefly, could be a fighter’s biggest undoing would be an overstatement. Perhaps, McGregor, by comparison, remains an aberration.

With championship wins across two weight classes, he remains part of a select group whose achievement is difficult to match in the UFC, even by today’s standards. Given his expanding business interests, including his stake in the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championships (BKFC), he might as well have stepped away, leaving his legacy intact as one of the greatest mixed martial artists ever.