Dana White confirms Conor McGregor will not attend UFC 242

Conor McGregor will not be in attendance this weekend for Khabib Nurmagomedov’s lightweight title defense against Dustin Poirier at UFC 242 in Abu Dhabi, per UFC president Dana White.

Given McGregor’s gift for drama and out-of-the-cage antics, many fights would have thought “Notorious” would do everything in his power to sit cageside for Khabib’s bout with “Diamond.” After all, Nurmagomedov is McGregor’s biggest rival and the Irishman is still in pursuit of a rematch from their UFC 229 meeting.

That doesn’t seem to be the case, though, as UFC president Dana White recently confirmed that McGregor will not be in attendance for UFC 242 after all.

“He won’t be here,” White told ESPN’s Brett Okamoto earlier this week. “I talk to Conor, normally, twice a month. I talked to him last night, this morning. No, he won’t be here. But he’ll be watching.”

McGregor not showing up is probably the best case scenario for UFC, who had to deal with an infamous post-fight brawl following Khabib’s victory over “Notorious” last year at UFC 229. If McGregor would to show up in full force in Abu Dhabi in front of Khabib’s biggest fans it likely wouldn’t go over well. The amount of security needed to make that happen would be insane.

That said, McGregor will still be watching Khabib’s title defense against Poirier, as he watches almost every UFC fight. The Irishman hasn’t fought since his encounter with Nurmagomedov back in 2018 and has been itching to get back inside of the cage ever since. The only problem is a nagging hand injury that is keeping “Notorious” on the shelf.

White, who has direct correspondence with McGregor on a monthly basis, doesn’t quite know when the Irish superstar will return to action. Until McGregor’s hand is healed UFC will not be including the former champion in their future plans for the lightweight division.

“I don’t know,” White said about McGregor returning this year. “I honestly don’t know. It’s all going to depend on his hand [injury] and how fast it recovers.”

MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 242 fight card on Saturday (click here), starting with the Fight Pass “Prelims” matches online, which are scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. ET, then the remaining undercard balance on FX Network at 12 p.m. ET, before the PPV main card start time at 2 p.m. ET on ESPN+.

For much more on UFC 242 check out our complete event archive by clicking here.