Conor McGregor’s return and the uncomfortable questions it poses for sport

On Saturday night, Conor McGregor will make his return to the octagon for the first time in five years when he takes on Max Holloway at UFC 329 in Las Vegas.

It comes just over 18 months after the 37-year-old lost a civil case and was ordered to pay €248,000 ($257,000, £206,000) in damages to his accuser Nikita Hand, who alleged that McGregor raped her in a Dublin hotel room in December 2018 – a charge McGregor denies. He was later told to pay costs too.

The case ended up in a civil claim at Ireland’s high court after the Irish director of public prosecutions (DPP) twice told Hand in 2020 that they would not prosecute as there was “no reasonable prospect of conviction” based on the standard of proof required for a criminal case being “beyond reasonable doubt.” In a civil case, the standard is lower, based on the balance of probabilities.

In court, the jury heard evidence from paramedic Eithne Scully, who examined Hand on the night of the incident and said she hadn’t “seen someone so bruised, with that intensity of bruising”.

After the finding against him, McGregor appealed the decision of the civil jury on the grounds that his lawyers believed his answers to police during interviews should not have been put before the jury.

His barrister also argued that a question on the “issue paper” given to the jury to help them decide their verdict should have been worded differently. The issue paper asked the jurors if McGregor had assaulted Ms Hand. McGregor’s lawyers argued it should have specified “sexual assault” rather than “assault”.

In July 2025, three senior judges at the Court of Appeal in Dublin dismissed the appeal on all grounds.

A statement from McGregor’s lawyer sent to The Athletic stated: “(McGregor’s) innocence is vindicated by virtue that there was a thorough and impartial police investigation which failed to establish any wrongdoing.

“The Director of Public Prosecution in Dublin took the unprecedented steps to have the Garda evidential files reviewed twice by expert senior counsel and, on both occasions, found no basis to charge my client with any criminal offense. To be deemed liable in a civil claim should never equate to criminal guilt and circumvent due process.”

Speaking outside court after the ruling was given, Hand said the appeal process had “re-traumatised” her “over and over again.”

“What happened has had a huge impact on me,” she said. “To every survivor out there, I know how hard it is, but please, don’t be silenced. You deserve to be heard, you also deserve justice. Today, I can finally move on and try to heal.”

One year on from his appeal being dismissed, McGregor is back in the spotlight, doing what he says he was “born to do”.

“Hallelujah, the Mac is back,” he said on stage at the UFC media day this week, before taking questions from assembled media (some addressing him as “Champ”) on his thoughts about the man he’ll fight on Saturday, his apparent religious awakening, his “cultural relevance”, and the position of the UFC in 2026.

Some 13 minutes in came a different question.

“Conor, can you understand why some people feel you do not deserve this platform, given the court case two years ago?”

McGregor exhaled deeply into the microphone before answering: “I’m an innocent man, and I’ll stand for my innocence until the day I go out.”

He went on to say it’s a situation he is “still fighting” and that “there is a reason it didn’t go where it went and it went to a civil trial”.

As one of the UFC’s most globally famous names, McGregor’s return has been hotly anticipated for the past few years, and the announcement that he would be fighting on UFC 329 generated headlines worldwide. “After a punishing battle of recovery and renewal,” read an interview with him on the UFC website earlier this month, “McGregor is set to make his comeback.”

Following a series of quotes from the Irishman about his “difficult few years with the injury recovery” — referring to the broken leg he suffered in his last fight, an injury-TKO loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 — the piece addressed what it termed “some of his issues away from the sport”.

“Fame has its pitfalls,” McGregor told the interviewer. “You better move carefully in this world, for sure. Probably even more so now.”

McGregor said he had been through “some treatment, a lot of self-reflective work” to get himself into a better place ahead of his return to competition.

Referring to the allegations and ruling made against McGregor as “issues away from the sport” hardly does justice to their seriousness and life-altering impact. The euphemistic approach seems to be a common one, though. During a preview of McGregor’s return on the Fight Disciples UFC podcast, in which it was debated whether a McGregor victory this weekend would go down as one of the sport’s greatest ever comebacks, the host referred to “life choices he’s (McGregor) made outside of the octagon”.

Perhaps there should be some credit given for addressing them at all, though — something that did not happen when McGregor was invited onto one of America’s most-watched talk shows, The Tonight Show, hosted by Jimmy Fallon, in June.

The five-and-a-half-minute segment carried a celebratory tone. There were jokes about McGregor once knocking out an opponent in 15 seconds, a discussion of the calmness and composure it takes to compete in MMA, of “trusting your discipline” once you’re in the octagon, why McGregor’s nickname is “The Notorious”, and why he wants his four children to be at the fight in Las Vegas.

“I want to show them what discipline, dedication and commitment to your craft can achieve,” said McGregor. “They’re going to see their father walk out and see the adoration of 20,000 or 30,000 fans, and a great performance. I want to show them this is what hard work gets you.”

There was not, however, a single mention made or acknowledgement of the finding against McGregor in 2024. It was as if it never happened. As if the events that left Hand’s life forever altered had left not even the smallest imprint on McGregor’s.

The show drew widespread criticism online, with some believing McGregor should never have been given such a platform in the first place. Others were disturbed by the decision that was clearly made not to address the case in any way whatsoever.

The Athletic reached out to Fallon’s personal representative and The Tonight Show for comment but, at time of writing, has received no reply.

Following the initial verdict against McGregor, The Athletic contacted the UFC for comment on it and on McGregor’s future in UFC but received no response. When Dana White was asked to comment on it in December 2024, he told reporters: “If I had a comment, I would have put it out already. He (McGregor) hasn’t been fighting here in I don’t know how long. If he does fight, it will be sometime next year.”

The Athletic reached out to the UFC for comment again this week and, at time of writing, has received no response.

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In November 2024, we asked whether the verdict would harm McGregor’s future earnings or UFC career. The answer was never really in doubt. In part because he’s Conor McGregor; one of the UFC’s most marketable figures, despite the years of inactivity. In part because, despite the ruling against him, and the disturbing evidence heard in court, he walked away without a criminal conviction.

But also because, time and time again, the sports world as a whole has shown its inability (at best) or unwillingness (at worst) to deal with claims of sexual and domestic violence against women and girls with anything close to the seriousness it merits.

In fight sports, we’ve seen Mike Tyson return from a rape conviction in 1992 for which he was sentenced to six years in prison along with four years’ probation. He was released after serving fewer than three years and came back in 1995, facing Peter McNeeley at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The bout made $96million worldwide, including a then-record $63m in pay-per-view buys, with the fight purchased by 1.52m American homes. More recently, Tyson fought YouTube star Jake Paul.

In the years since Tyson’s dominance, Floyd Mayweather Jr has been convicted of domestic violence and battery on multiple occasions.

Away from fight sports, this past month has seen three players competing at the men’s World Cup who are facing active investigations or have been charged with rape. All deny the claims against them. But despite facing such serious allegations, that’s three players able to compete on arguably the biggest stage in world sport. Three national teams asking their fans to cheer in support of these players.

After allegations of sexual assault were filed against Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009, the Portuguese forward did not play in the United States for more than a decade but continued to play for club and country throughout the police investigation. The allegations were always strenuously denied by Ronaldo and a civil case filed against him was thrown out by a U.S. judge in 2022.

In tennis, Alexander Zverev’s first grand slam victory at the French Open this year left some fans conflicted after he stood trial in Germany over domestic abuse allegations made by Brenda Patea, his ex-girlfriend and mother of his child. Zverev — who will contest Sunday’s Wimbledon men’s singles final against Jannik Sinner — resolved the case with a financial settlement before a verdict, resulting in the dropping of charges. He denied the allegations and still asserts his innocence.

None of this is to say that any athlete who has faced or faces allegations of violence against women should never be allowed to compete in their sport again. Rather, it is to illustrate further the need for the sports world — a place that wields such global power and influence — to show beyond all doubt that it recognises and respects the seriousness of such allegations and their potential impact on all those involved.

McGregor’s case might differ from all of these in that he has lost a claim brought against him, but there is one factor that unites them all: the lack of any clear policy or protocol from many of those who govern sport about how to deal with cases involving allegations of sexual violence or domestic abuse.

Leagues such as the NFL, NBA and MLB do have clear codes of conduct when it comes to sexual offences, starting with a baseline suspension amid an ongoing investigation. But the void elsewhere leaves room for interpretation. It allows those in power to choose an individual’s worth and value as a sportsman over the allegations made against them. It leaves those covering the sport to decide how “relevant” or not these cases are to any discussion of the athlete’s sporting endeavours.

It gives the likes of Fallon the freedom to simply brush it all under the carpet.

The message that emerges as a result is that sexual violence against women doesn’t matter all that much. That the women who show such bravery in speaking out against powerful men are wasting their time because their trauma cannot compete with the power of sport, or the power that sport imparts on its protagonists.

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In the case of McGregor, there will be those who believe he has every right to continue with his life in the spotlight. He has no criminal conviction and has paid his dues to Hand in the form of damages. Why shouldn’t he be allowed to step back into the arena that turned him into a global superstar?

It is a fair question. But if his “comeback” comes with the cost of silence, or at best, vague references to “issues away from the sport” and “life choices”, it remains an uncomfortable one.

Statistics show that 83 per cent of the 3.4 million acts of sexual violence (including rape) in England and Wales every year go unreported to the police. In the U.S., it is estimated that only about 19 to 25 per cent of all sexual assaults are reported annually.

If even those who are believed in court have their trauma silenced by the noise around a sporting comeback or success, how likely is it that these numbers will ever change?

McGregor’s return to the octagon has already created enough noise to drown out the reverberations from his civil rape case. But it’s only the first step on his journey back. Over the coming years, he will undoubtedly have the opportunity to make more millions and bury his past further beneath a host of new headlines.

For the sake of Nikita Hand and all those like her, sport needs to find a way of showing that violence against women is not something it is willing to overlook. It’s time for the blinkers to come off and for those in power to address the uncomfortable reality in front of them.

Until then, the message to all women will remain the same. Sport goes on, even if life as you once knew it does not.