John Kavanagh 'very, very confident' Conor McGregor returns to UFC in 2023

As the calendar recently turned to 2023, perhaps the biggest question of the new year was about Conor McGregor: Will the former UFC two-division champion return to the octagon?

“I’d be willing to bet my house on it,” John Kavanagh, McGregor’s coach at SBG Ireland, said Monday on “The MMA Hour.”

Short of a yes, that’s as definitive of an answer as you’ll get from one of McGregor’s longtime confidants. Kavanagh said he and McGregor have spoken in the past couple of days and noted that McGregor’s manager, Audi Attar of Paradigm Sports, was in town.

Kavanagh didn’t elaborate but hinted at something in the works.

“I think there’s some interesting negotiations going along now,” Kavanagh said. “… I absolutely can’t say anything beyond that, but I’m very, very confident we will see Conor back in the octagon.”

McGregor (22-6 MMA, 10-4 UFC), 34, hasn’t competed in 18 months when he lost to Dustin Poirier by injury TKO after breaking his leg on a kick in their trilogy bout in July 2021 at UFC 264. Six months earlier, McGregor was knocked out by Poirier at UFC 257. He’s lost three of his past four MMA bouts dating back to October 2018. He fell out of the official UFC lightweight rankings late last year.

McGregor will have no shortage of big-name opponent options – at lightweight or welterweight – as Michael Chandler, Jorge Masvidal, and Charles Oliveira have been among many to call him out.