Conor McGregor put his feet up on the table, cracked open a can of his own stout and launched into a 16-minute, expletive-filled rant at Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship’s Glasgow press conference, and for many fight fans watching it was hard not to ask one simple question: is Conor OK?
The 38-year-old Dubliner, who is a partner in BKFC, took over the post-fight press conference after BKFC 96 at the sold-out OVO Hydro on Saturday, November 7, the promotion’s first ever show in Scotland.
What should have been a night about Sean Weir’s first-round win in the main event quickly became the Conor McGregor show again, with the former two-weight UFC champion demanding a trilogy fight with Max Holloway, telling lower-level fighters exactly what he thinks of them and taking aim at Darren Till.
What happened at the Conor McGregor press conference in Glasgow
According to EssentiallySports, McGregor spoke for around 16 minutes. At one point he put his feet up on the table, took them down again, then opened a can of Forged Irish Stout, his own beer brand, and drank from it before carrying on.
The main target was Max Holloway, the Hawaiian who beat him at UFC 329 in July. “It has to be Holloway,” McGregor said, as reported by MMA Fighting. “Just do the f*cking thing again.” He insisted Holloway “didn’t engage once” and was the one who called for the stoppage.
He told reporters he wants to leave the UFC “violently, viciously” in a “blaze of glory”, and claimed: “I’d have done him on the one leg.”
Then came a blunt message for anyone outside the elite who mentions him: “If you’re not a world champion fighter, if you’ve not got world accolades to your name, don’t utter my f*cking name.”
He also dismissed Darren Till’s recent BKFC outing against Yoel Romero as looking more like a spar than a real bare-knuckle fight, while praising Weir for chasing a world title.
Why this one felt different
McGregor has never been shy with a microphone. His press conferences sold fights, built a global brand and made him the biggest star combat sports has ever seen. Swearing, bravado and outrageous claims are part of the package, and nobody expects him to show up and read from a script.
But the old McGregor’s trash talk was sharp, funny and calculated. Even EssentiallySports, which described Glasgow as an “unhinged rant”, said he looked far from that old version of himself. For a lot of viewers this came across less as a sales pitch and more as a man still raging about a defeat he hasn’t made peace with.
It isn’t the first time a BKFC appearance has got people talking. In January 2025 he turned up late to the KnuckleMania 5 press conference in Philadelphia and delivered a speech that left many fans concerned. Drinking Forged Irish Stout on stage at BKFC events has also become a regular sight, and to be fair, plugging his own product is part of the job for him.
A brutal 2026 for Conor McGregor
Whatever you make of Glasgow, there is no denying McGregor has had a punishing year.
- The comeback that lasted 69 seconds: his first fight in five years, against Holloway at UFC 329 in Las Vegas on July 11, ended after just 1:09. He later confirmed he had torn the ACL and damaged the meniscus in his right knee.
- Surgery and a long road back: he had surgery in early August and has been looking at nine to 12 months out, pushing his return into 2027. His coach John Kavanagh has spoken about that timeline.
- His pub attacked: a self-styled extremist was jailed this month for torching his pub and stabbing a garda.
That comes after a damaging 2025 at home. In July of that year the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal against the November 2024 High Court civil jury finding in favour of Nikita Hand, who was awarded almost €250,000 in damages.
In October 2025, at a BKFC press conference in Italy, McGregor said he had been on a spiritual journey and declared: “I’m saved, I am healed.” A year on, Glasgow did not look like a man at peace.
What happens next for McGregor
McGregor has one fight left on his UFC contract and is adamant it must be Holloway. His longtime manager Audie Attar told Uncrowned this week that he expects that final UFC fight to come in late 2027, but added: “You can’t look that far out.”
After that, McGregor says his future is in bare-knuckle. “I really enjoy bareknuckle fighting,” he said in Glasgow. “I’m looking forward to a bareknuckle fight myself.”
OPINION: Is Conor OK?
This section is the opinion of the Connemara Journal.
Nobody but Conor McGregor knows how Conor McGregor is doing, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise. But watching Glasgow, it was hard not to feel uneasy.
This is a 38-year-old man recovering from major knee surgery, who has lost his last big fight in 69 seconds and has had more than his share of turmoil off the cage in the past two years. A press conference where he drinks on stage and spends 16 minutes raging at Holloway, Till and anyone who has ever said his name doesn’t look like a man in a good place. It looks like a man who is hurting.
Ireland has watched McGregor rise from Crumlin to the top of the sporting world. Love him or loathe him, many people here will hope the year of rehab ahead is used to heal more than his knee, and that the people around him are looking out for him as well as cashing in on him.
If the Holloway trilogy does happen in 2027, the version of McGregor who walks out matters far more than what he says at a press conference in Glasgow.
Sources: BKFC, MMA Fighting, EssentiallySports, Bleacher Report, AP, The Irish Times, Uncrowned.
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