Conor McGregor will make his much anticipated return to the UFC on October 6, when he'll take on Lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229 in Las Vegas.
The two fighters have plenty of history outside of the ring, most notably the fact that McGregor had targeted Nurmagomedov during his infamous bus attack at the Barclays Center in April. Not to mention, the belt Nurmagomedov currently holds is the one McGregor was forced to relinquish due to inactivity. As such, their upcoming bout is a huge draw for the UFC and will have casual fans, as well as diehard UFC fans, tuning in on October 6.
In fact, Mark Wahlberg (who is a minority owner in the UFC) is predicting that the McGregor vs Nurmagomedov fight for the Lightweight championship will be the biggest PPV fight in the history of the sport. "This is going to be the biggest pay-per-view fight in the history of UFC," Wahlberg tells TMZ Sports. Given McGregor's enormous star power and Nurmagomedov's rise to the top of the division as an undefeated fighter, Wahlberg certainly has good reason to believe that UFC 229 will rival some of the UFC's all-time PPV events.
McGregor (21-3) made his professional boxing debut against Floyd Mayweather last August but he has not fought in the UFC since November 2016, when he defeated Eddie Alvarez at Madison Square Garden. Nurmagomedov (26-0) won the Lightweight belt in Brooklyn on April 7 by defeating Al Iaquinta via unanimous decision, after McGregor was stripped of it for inactivity.
ESPN's Brett Okamoto writes, "Nurmagomedov has replaced McGregor as the most dominant force in the division, and is the No. 3 pound-for-pound fighter in the world according to ESPN. Stylistically, he is a dominant wrestler, compared to McGregor's reputation as a devastating striker."
