Max Holloway Rips Conor McGregor's UFC 329 Claims After 69-Second TKO

Q: Will McGregor's bizarre dry ice excuse actually force the UFC to erase his embarrassing 69-second defeat?

No. McGregor’s “dry ice” or fog-machine explanation is very unlikely to get his 69-second loss to Max Holloway erased. Under the Unified Rules of MMA, a no contest is typically reserved for bouts stopped by an accidental injury caused by an illegal action or a clear external factor that can be proven. What happened here, based on the public record, was McGregor injuring his own knee while throwing and landing from a legal jumping kick. That is normally ruled a TKO loss, not a no contest. The key problem for McGregor is evidence. He has claimed the walkout fog left the canvas wet, but there has been no publicly released technical report, commission finding, or official complaint showing the surface was dangerously slick. Holloway’s response — “I didn’t fall” — undercuts the idea that conditions alone caused the injury, even if it does not settle the matter by itself. The Nevada commission also has little reason to intervene absent proof of an external hazard or procedural error. Comparable cases in MMA have stayed on the books as losses when fighters were hurt by their own movement or by legal exchanges. McGregor himself acknowledged after the fight that he had no preexisting injury, which further weakens any argument that the bout was improperly allowed to proceed. Unless new, credible evidence emerges showing the canvas condition directly caused the stoppage and that officials failed in their duties, the official result should remain: Holloway by injury TKO.

3 articles · Updated · MMA Fighting · Aug 21

Max Holloway said Conor McGregor was "delusional" for claiming he was headed for a "generational beating" before suffering a knee injury in their UFC 329 main event.
Holloway rejected McGregor's suggestion that slippery conditions played a role, saying he never slipped and that McGregor instead "felt slow" and "looked old" in the cage.
The July 11 rematch ended after 69 seconds when McGregor blew out his ACL, handing Holloway an anticlimactic TKO win and leaving McGregor sidelined for nearly a year.
Holloway said he would sign for a McGregor trilogy next summer, but is also open to title shots at 155 or 170 after his recent friction with Islam Makhachev's camp.