IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
A sports doctor is sharing his thoughts on Conor McGregor’s leg injury.
On Saturday night, McGregor made his long-awaited return to the Octagon to face off against Max Holloway, but unfortunately, his comeback didn’t go as planned.
In the first round of the fight, McGregor sustained a leg injury that prevented him from fighting.
ALL ANGLES In depth look at how Conor McGregor injured his leg 👀 #UFC329 pic.twitter.com/x5Xc6FMGer
— Mcgregor Forever (@mcgregorufc22) July 12, 2026
While speaking to Uncrowned’s Ariel Helwani, sports doctor Brian Sutterer believes McGregor may have entered the fight with a pre-existing meniscus injury.
“Didn’t see the classic shift you’d expect with an obvious ACL injury. I’d say meniscus is No. 1. An ACL is definitely possible and a concern, but it didn’t have the definitive look we’ve seen in other cases.
It would fit with some pre-existing meniscus issues coming into the fight that got worse on the landing.”
Sutterer expanded on why he believes McGregor may have come into the fight with an injury, citing a video shown on the Paramount broadcast of McGregor losing his balance after taking off his shoes.
“As he goes to take that right shoe off, he kind of stumbles but then very clearly doesn’t want to put a bunch of weight down on that right leg. And, and they brought this up as like, well, we don’t want to speculate if he was injured going into the fight, but, but this absolutely to me looks like somebody who was dealing with something on that right knee, didn’t want to put their weight down on it to brace and catch their fall.”
“I think that would even be more likely to be something like a meniscus. He could have been dealing with a meniscus injury before coming into the fight. When he threw that kick, landed twisted, that aggravated things. So I would still have something like a meniscus injury number one. Absolutely though, an ACL, just because we don’t see that shift, it doesn’t mean that an ACL hasn’t occurred.”