For the past two years, fans have been waiting with bated breath for the return of the UFC’s prodigal son- Conor McGregor, the biggest superstar the sport has ever seen. The Irishman, of course, hasn’t fought since 2021, when he horrifically broke his ankle in two at UFC 264.

But with the Irishman announcing his intention to box Logan Paul in an exhibition, these hopes have been dashed yet again. More importantly, an increasingly large section of fans feels that this means the former two-division champion may never be back in the UFC octagon? Why? Well, podcaster and former UFC star Brendan Schaub did a good job of explaining it on his ‘The Fighter and the Kid’ podcast.

“He [McGregor] tweets all sorts of random s**t,” Schaub said of ‘Mac’s tweet announcing he is in ‘preliminary agreements’ to fight Logan Paul in India with the financing of the South Asian country’s richest family, the Ambanis.

“I’ll tell you what, it signifies to me [that] the UFC’s kind of done with Conor because he has to get granted release from the UFC or just granted the ability to do it. So I think Dana’s going ‘yeah do that’ is them going ‘we’re good dude, we’re good’,” the former UFC heavyweight added.

Indeed, since ‘Mac’ is still signed with the UFC and has two fights left on his contract, he cannot go fight Paul without the blessings of Dana White and co. And the fact that the promotion is willing to let him go box Paul and not insist he fight in the UFC first, does seem like them washing his hands of him. This is why Schaub feels that the Irishman may never be back in the UFC again.

“So that if you’re a Conor fan, it’s actually a bad sign if you want to see him back in the UFC. I mean people are going to watch [the Logan Paul fight], but still I think it’s such a bad sign if you’re, you know, I’m a fan of Conor and I want to see him back in the UFC, but it’s over man,” Schaub warned. And it seems Dana White does agree with this assessment and doesn’t see the Irishman coming back to the octagon.

What has Dana White been saying about Conor McGregor’s UFC return?

All Dana White has recently said about Conor McGregor’s possible return to the UFC is that ‘if’ the Dubliner fights in the UFC again, it would be next year. Key word here being ‘if’, which makes it seem like even the UFC CEO doesn’t really have a high degree of confidence that McGregor will be back.

Not to mention Dana White has been saying for the longest time that McGregor has essentially made too much money to want to fight in the UFC again. Especially if he can make comparable amounts of money to fight other celebrities or retired boxers like Manny Pacquaio, which the Irishman has been angling for.

But that cannot be true, can it? After all, the Irishman has been nothing but enthusiastic about his UFC return, even talking about his intention to do so in the tweet announcing the Logan Paul fight. Well, what people are forgetting is that McGregor is a marketing genius. And what better way to remain in the news cycle than to keep talking about his UFC return, even if he has no intention of doing so?

On the other hand, all of this speculation could just turn out to be false, and the Irishman may indeed make his UFC return in 2025. But at the moment, the chances of that seem less and less likely. What do you think about Brendan Schaub’s thoughts on Conor McGregor’s UFC comeback?