Conor McGregor hasn’t fought since 2021, and despite his recent return to the UFC’s anti-doping program, not everyone’s convinced he’s actually planning a comeback. One of those skeptics is UFC veteran Matt Brown, who believes McGregor’s current state points more to a man battling an identity crisis than preparing for war.
McGregor has shifted gears heavily in the past few years, he’s co-owned BKFC, launched his own beer, cigar line, and a record label, and even talked about running for President of Ireland. Yet, for Brown, these ventures look like the distractions of a fighter struggling to figure out who he is outside the cage.
“We don’t know him as a person,” Matt Brown said on The Fighter vs. The Writer. “We don’t know him personally. We don’t know what’s going on in his life. If we judge solely by his social media, which you can only judge so much by social media, it’s not factual all the time. But if I judge him just by social media, I would question his mental health.”
For Brown, it’s a familiar struggle. He went through it himself when his own fighting career came to an end. Like many fighters, Brown built his identity around being in the cage.
“Every fighter knows it becomes your identity,” he said. “When you’re a fighter, it becomes who you are. We talk about it all the time with sports psychologists and other fighters, you can’t let this be your identity. You’re more than that. It becomes your identity. I don’t give a f*ck what everybody tells you or what you try to believe in your own head.
“When you step out of the cage one day, you’ll realize that’s who you were and that was all of who you were. I think Conor’s having a hard time with that, seemingly.”
McGregor was once the king of the UFC, becoming the first fighter to simultaneously hold titles in two weight classes. However,his last championship win came in 2016. Since then, he’s only fought four times, going 1-3, with the most brutal loss being a broken leg in his trilogy bout against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264. He hasn’t fought since.
“Now his identity kind of got ripped apart by Dustin Poirier,” Brown explained. “Dustin took his soul. Khabib [Nurmagomedov] probably first, but Dustin kind of put the nail in the coffin on that.
“Now he’s not a winner with that identity. Now he’s not even competing anymore. That’s a lot to deal with for anyone. So you’ve got to have a little bit of sympathy on that side. It is a lot to deal with.”
“He’s probably in a situation where he retired where he’s like ‘I’ve got all this money, what the f*ck do I do now?’” Brown said. “I’ve never had that much money, like I have to say that out loud just in case you were wondering, I haven’t had that much money yet, but I know very, very wealthy people that talk about that. Like once you make a certain amount of money, your purpose in life becomes a little bit more difficult to find.
“Like you better have good friends and family. Because you don’t know what to do with yourself now. You made it. You have everything you need. You can buy whatever you want. You can go wherever you want. There’s nothing left.”
At 37, McGregor isn’t getting any younger, and the sport doesn’t wait for anyone. For now, he continues teasing fans with talk of a return. However, from Brown’s perspective, the signs don’t look promising.
“We can only look from social media, that’s all we know about him,” Matt Brown said. “We’re not hanging out with him. But on that side, it does not appear that he’s handling it properly or well.”
Whether McGregor ever returns to reclaim his fighting spirit remains to be seen, but Matt Brown believes the real battle might already be underway,and it’s not one inside the Octagon.
