Sean O’Malley is not buying the idea that Conor McGregor walked into his UFC 329 injury loss to Max Holloway with a bad knee already waiting to give out.
O’Malley posted a live YouTube reaction after McGregor’s comeback fight ended in 69 seconds at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. McGregor opened with an explosive kick, stepped awkwardly soon after, and the bout was waved off when he could not continue. Holloway got the official win, but O’Malley was stuck on how quickly the night collapsed.
“I feel like I’m in shock,” O’Malley said. “I cannot believe what just happened. There’s no way he had a previous knee injury going into the fight. There’s no way, because you don’t come out with a f*cking double front backflip 720 spinning heel kick to the chin if your knee’s compromised. It’s hard for me to believe if he had a previous existing injury. I’m so sad right now.”
Watch O’Malley’s full reaction below:
O’Malley Says The Kick Makes The Injury Theory Hard To Believe
After rewatching the opening sequence, O’Malley said he did not see the same limp that some fans had pointed to before the fight. His read was that McGregor looked healthy enough until the freak moment happened.
“It didn’t look like, I know people are saying it looked like Conor had a limp. Conor was taking his shoe off, kind of fell over sideways a little bit. That didn’t look to me. It looked like he was healthy. Looked f*cking good. It looked like he went out there and threw that kick. If Conor was compromised, if his knee hurt going into the fight, he doesn’t come out and throw that kick. You just don’t come out and jump off your leg and land on your other compromised knee that’s already hurt.”
That matches the argument Dana White made after UFC 329, when he pushed back on pre-fight injury talk and pointed to warm-up footage of McGregor throwing a similar kick backstage. O’Malley went even further, calling it a freak accident rather than a sign of a hidden injury.
“For everyone saying knee is already hurt and he was that, sounds ridiculous to me,” O’Malley said. “It looked like a freak accident. This is just freak accidents happen. Unfortunately it happened on the biggest, absolutely most insane card, most insane comeback of all time.”
“There’s a 0% chance if my left knee or my right knee hurts and I’m going into a fight, I’m gonna go out there and jump off my leg and throw a kick,” O’Malley said. “People saying Conor’s knee was hurt before, I don’t believe it. Freak accident in my opinion.”
O’Malley Wonders How The UFC Sells Another McGregor Return
O’Malley also sounded worried about what another long injury layoff could do to McGregor. The former two-division champion later said surgery and one final UFC fight were next, but O’Malley wondered how hard it would be to make the walk again after another major setback.
“Oh God, I hope Conor doesn’t go off the f*cking deep end,” O’Malley said. “And if he does, I hope he calls me and asks me to join him because I would love to f*cking partake in off the deep end with you. If you need a mate, f*cking let me know.”
He tied that worry to McGregor’s years away from the cage and the toll of lifestyle, injuries, and pressure building around a comeback that never really got started.
“All those five years that he was off, and even those years before when he wasn’t off, but he was still in, a lot of alcohol, a lot of nose lattes, a lot of just partying, that takes a toll on your body. Then you come out there and you throw a spinning 180, 900, 720 kick flip kick and your shit pops.”
McGregor remains the biggest box-office name the UFC has, and the UFC 329 gate only reinforced that. O’Malley still believes another McGregor fight would sell, even if the promotion now has to explain another comeback after the Michael Chandler booking fell apart and the Holloway rematch ended almost instantly.
“If Conor decides to fight again, battling the demons to come back and try to not even just to get to the octagon, but to get through the fight, what do you do if you’re the UFC?” O’Malley said. “You had the Chandler stuff with the toe out for years. Then he finally gets in and it’s happening, it’s happening. F*cking tickets sold out. Vegas sold out. Gets to the fight, blows his shit out in 30 seconds.”
“Do you book Conor again? Conor probably got paid 15, 20, 25, 30 million, 40 million, whatever, 10 million. I don’t know what he got paid. I mean, UFC made their money from the gate. Paramount was happy with the views, but how do you sell it again? The thing is, it will sell again. Conor versus anybody, end of the year, next year, will be huge. It’ll probably break the f*cking gate again.”
The injury has kept McGregor’s comeback stuck between medical questions and future matchmaking. Dustin Poirier questioned the same pre-fight injury theory, while Holloway said McGregor did not seem like the same Conor before the stoppage. O’Malley’s reaction landed somewhere in the middle: disbelief, sadness, and a hard no on the idea that McGregor knowingly opened the fight on a compromised knee.
