UFC champion Conor McGregor announced on Saturday that his bout with Michael Chandler in the UFC 303 event is postponed due to an injury during training.
UFC President Dana White had also made known on Thursday that the Irishman would not fight in the main event of the June 29 card, with a rematch between light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira and Jiri Prochazka set to headline instead.
The announcement came after a press conference for the event was called off by UFC this month.
“Very tough to be ruled out of my scheduled return bout,” McGregor said in an Instagram post. “I picked up an injury prior to the press conference that required more time to heal than was available to me.
“The decision to postpone the fight was not made lightly, but one made in consultation with my doctors, the UFC, and my team. My fans and opponent deserve me at my best for this fight and we will get there!”
Former featherweight and lightweight champion McGregor has not fought since his TKO loss to Dustin Poirier in July 2021, in which he sustained fractures to his left tibia and fibula that required surgery.
The June postponement is the first time in McGregor’s UFC career that he has pulled out of a fight for any reason.
The match was approaching $20 million in ticket sales, according to White.
“The Notorious” fighter started his UFC career in 2013. He became the first UFC fighter to hold two category titles at the same time when he won the UFC featherweight championship in 2015 and the lightweight championship in 2016. He has 24 wins by KO or TKO.
McGregor, 36, an athlete, entrepreneur, and restaurateur, also became a movie actor in the 2024 film “Road House,” starring Jake Gyllenhaal.
He has more than 70 million followers on social media and was No. 1 on the 2021 Forbes “Highest-Paid Athletes” list. He splits his time between his home in Dublin, the United States, and the Mediterranean.
