Conor McGregor showed his injured right knee moving again, and Dr. Brian Sutterer saw enough in the workout footage to question whether the public timeline is as simple as a full ACL reconstruction case.
McGregor’s latest rower clip followed the UFC 329 rematch with Max Holloway, where his comeback ended after 1:09 because of the right knee injury. McGregor has said the injury involved his ACL and meniscus, and Dana White later said McGregor was expected to miss about a year.
Sutterer opened his YouTube breakdown by separating the visible recovery clips from the limited public medical details.
“Conor McGregor is nearly 3 weeks out from the right knee injury that he suffered during the opening seconds here against Max Holloway. And based on everything we’ve seen Connor posting amongst all the energy drink ads, I’m a little bit confused about the timeline and what else might be going on with his knee.”
“Between the videos of Connor cranking away on the rowing machine, all the knee extensions that he’s been doing, and every picture we’ve seen about how his knee looks, I have some questions about what’s going on with his injury timeline here and the treatment plan.”
The earlier injury history matters because McGregor compared the new problem to the first Holloway fight.
“The most detail we’ve gotten from Connor after his injury was on his Instagram post. This was a little over a week ago when he said update. It was the ACL and meniscus, the same injury as the first Holloway fight.”
Sutterer said the way McGregor fell can fit an ACL and meniscus injury, but he did not see one visual marker he often associates with a complete ACL rupture.
“Going back to the actual injury, the mechanism makes sense with an ACL and with a meniscus. My of course first thought was primarily meniscus because we didn’t see that classic shift forward and then buckle backwards in the tibia like you will often see with a complete full thickness ACL tear.”
“I think one thing we have to consider here is that this is just an ACL sprain and not actually a full thickness rupture of the ACL which would play an important role in the timeline of all this treatment here.”
Sprain Or Full Tear
Sutterer emphasized that an ACL label does not automatically mean every fiber is torn or that surgery is guaranteed.
“Whenever we hear ACL injury, high level athlete, we all assume that this is a complete full thickness ACL tear. You can have a partial tear of the ACL, an ACL lower grade sprain where just a few of those fibers are torn or maybe one of the two bundles of the ACL is torn.”
“Because an ACL sprain may often and doesn’t typically require surgery. A full thickness in an athlete like this. Yes, but a sprain, partial tear, not necessarily.”
He then explained why the swelling and motion seen in McGregor’s clips stood out against the usual early presentation after a full ACL tear.
“The typical scenario, someone comes in to see us with a torn ACL that’s a day or two old. Their knee is very large and swollen with a big eusion. Their range of motion is significantly impaired and they often have trouble bearing weight and walking on it.”
“And then there are a lot of other associated injuries that can occur. You can have an MCL sprain with an ACL. You can have an LCL sprain. You can have a lot of other things, micro fracture, impaction injuries, cartilage injuries with these types of things.”
“And so the fact that we have not seen any regular brace use in the days, weeks after the injury makes it less likely that there is a major serious other ligament injury in the knee that they are waiting to do surgery until that heals.”
What The Workout Clips Showed
The first visible clue for Sutterer was McGregor sitting with the injured knee bent rather than locked out straight.
“We can see he’s sitting with his knee bent. It’s not like he’s got his leg out straight. So, right away, he had pretty darn good range of motion. Again, not like this is an impossible thing to see, but it’s something you’re like, ‘Huh, that’s not really typical for when you have a full ACL rupture.'”
The leg-extension video added another piece because McGregor was loading the knee while showing little obvious swelling.
“We then see Connor doing these really aggressive knee extensions and like his right knee looks fantastic. I mean, there’s like no swelling whatsoever in his right knee. Again, range of motion looks fantastic. He’s putting a lot of load through it.”
“Knee looks fantastic. Like this does not look in any way, shape or form like an acutely ACL ruptured, torn meniscus, like on your way to surgery. Knee.”
The rower clip was the clearest reason Sutterer pushed the timeline question.
“And then the most recent uh exercise video we saw was him just cranking it out on this rower. I mean, like, you would look at this and not even know which knee was injured.”
“Either Connor is like a superhuman or this is just extremely atypical for your usual kind of run-of-the-mill ACL tear this quick after suffering the injury.”
The Surgery Clock
Sutterer connected the medical uncertainty to McGregor’s stated International Fight Week 2027 target.
“Most ACL surgeries will be a 9 to 12 month recovery period. And so part of why I’m also looking at this and wondering what’s going on, like why there’s a delay is because if the plan is truly to come back for International Fight Week in 2027, like every week matters here.”
“Connor’s previous ACL surgery was about a year recovery and that was like 13 years ago when it was going to be far quicker, easier to recover from a big surgery when you’re of course 13 years younger.”
The less severe possibility, in Sutterer’s view, is that the ACL injury may not require a full reconstruction.
“It’s very possible that this is an ACL sprain that hopefully doesn’t need a full ACL reconstruction. I would love Connor to come back sooner than later and be able to watch him fight again.”
“I don’t know why they would still be waiting to go in and do surgery on the meniscus if the meniscus needed surgery.”
He also gave the strongest argument for rehab before surgery, while still saying elite-athlete timing changes the calculation.
“Prehab is all extremely important. To be honest, not as important in an elite athlete.”
“There is often some period of time to let swelling go down, some period of time to work on getting back the range of motion. But with elite athletes, the timeline is often just as important, if not more important.”
“The other thing that’s important is quad activation. We saw Connor talk about activating your quad. When you are injured, you don’t walk a lot. You don’t do as much activity. It’s very quick that your muscles can atrophy.”
Sutterer closed by making clear he was not accusing McGregor of inventing an injury.
“Again, I hope I’m not being too like conspiratorial here. I really don’t think that Connor is lying about this injury. I don’t think he’s making up an injury and he’s not actually hurt.”
“I think there’s a real injury. I just don’t think we maybe necessarily have all the facts and know all the details of it because it doesn’t seem to add up 100% with what we’re seeing timeline wise.”
McGregor’s UFC 329 return took place on July 11, 2026 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Holloway won by first-round TKO due to injury, moving to 28-9, while McGregor fell to 22-7.
The first Holloway fight was on Aug. 17, 2013, when McGregor won by unanimous decision and later revealed he had injured his ACL during the bout. He returned in July 2014 with a first-round stoppage of Diego Brandao in Dublin.
McGregor became the UFC’s first simultaneous two-division champion in 2016, but his most recent UFC win remains the 40-second Donald Cerrone stoppage in January 2020. He later broke his left leg against Dustin Poirier in July 2021, spent five years away from the Octagon, and now has another knee timeline between him and the final fight he has targeted for International Fight Week 2027. More coverage is available in MMA news and UFC news.
