Why hasn’t Conor McGregor fought in five years? UFC star’s rape case, missed drug tests and broken leg explained

On Saturday, Conor McGregor will fight for the first time in five years, as he takes on Max Holloway at UFC 329.

The Las Vegas main event comes 13 years after McGregor outpointed the Hawaiian, with both men going on to become world champions in the years in between.

It also take place five years after McGregor last entered the Octagon, when he suffered a second successive loss to old rival Dustin Poirier, sustaining a broken leg in the process.

And that broken leg is just one of many dramatic episodes in the Irishman’s life over the last five years, so as he prepares to fight again – on the week he turns 38 – here are five key moments that you need to know about:

McGregor and Poirier, squaring off for the third time overall (and second in six months), fought their first round at a frantic pace. There were moments when McGregor seemed to have the edge, but as the round wore on, it tipped in Poirier’s favour. And as the American pressured McGregor late in the round, the Irishman stepped backwards and rolled his ankle, aggravating a stress fracture that he had brought into the fight without fans knowing.

McGregor fell to the canvas at T-Mobile Arena, where he will fight Holloway this weekend, and he covered up as Poirier poured on punches just before the buzzer sounded. When the end of the round did arrive, the fight was immediately waved off. Poirier casually strolled back to his corner, accurately telling his team that McGregor had broken his leg, while McGregor barked at officials to ensure that ring announcer Bruce Buffer declared the result a “doctor stoppage” rather than a regular TKO.

The road to recovery was always going to be long and winding, based on similar injuries suffered by the likes of Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman – icons of MMA – but few could have foreseen that McGregor would be out for five years.

McGregor actually tried to make a UFC return in the summer of 2024, but this time he suffered a broken toe, thwarting a long-awaited clash with Michael Chandler on two weeks’ notice.

The pair had been linked since early 2023, when they served as opposing coaches on The Ultimate Fighter, but when McGregor fell out of the fight injured, Chandler finally had to let go of the idea of facing the Irishman. He instead fought Charles Oliveira in a rematch that November, losing a dominant decision.

In November 2024, a civil jury found that McGregor had raped a woman in a Dublin hotel room in 2018. The fighter, who has always denied all allegations against him, was ordered to pay the accuser almost €250,000 in damages.

In July 2025, McGregor appealed the result of the trial, but his appeal failed.McGregor was famously pictured attending a court date with his fiancee – now wife – Dee Devlin by his side.

In June 2023, after McGregor had accidentally punched a mascot too aggressively at a Miami Heat basketball game, a more-serious story followed. Miami police received a report that McGregor had sexually assaulted a woman at the match, although he denied the allegation.

McGregor was prosecuted but the case was dropped in October 2023. In January 2025, a civil lawsuit was filed against the fighter in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, accusing him of sexual assault during the game. The case also named the Miami Heat and Basketball Properties LLC, which operates the Kaseya Center, as defendants, alleging gross negligence.

However, the Florida State Attorney’s Office did not pursue criminal charges. In December of the same year, the plaintiff in the civil claim submitted a notice of voluntary dismissal with prejudice, meaning no further litigation would be brought forward. Barbara Llanes, McGregor’s lawyer, told the BBC that the UFC star and his family were “pleased this is now over”, adding: “After a thorough investigation, including a review of videos and interviews with eyewitnesses, the authorities have concluded that there is no case to pursue against my client, Conor McGregor. As anticipated, this decision by the authorities confirms Mr McGregor’s account of the evening.”

In October 2025, it was announced that McGregor was serving an 18-month suspension – backdated to September 2024 – due to three drug-test whereabouts failures. That meant he could fight again from March 2026. His final whereabouts failure took place in September 2024, after the fight with Chandler had fallen through. This June, the New York Times published an investigation alleging that McGregor had used “powerful, banned drugs” to recover from his leg break.

“A man’s private medical [information], and the most devastating injury that you can see in combat sports… the whole thing is strange to me,” McGregor told Uncrowned. “You have an injury like that, you’re not going to walk again. The objective should be to get that athlete – that fighter who’s given his life, his limb, his livelihood for the entertainment of the people and for the profit of the company… it should be ‘get this man back on his feet’.

“If a doctor is prescribing certain medications and certain things to come back, otherwise you’re not going to walk again – there’s like a 20 per cent chance that leg doesn’t join together again […] f*** this fighting game. Are you crazy? I have children to raise and play with. I took myself out of the [drug-testing] pool, listened to my doctors, didn’t ask questions. I don’t even know [what I took]. If you were to ask what it was, I don’t even know. I don’t know, I don’t need [to know], I don’t want to know.”