Fighter vs. Writer: Matt Brown Reacts to Conor McGregor’s Injury, Plans to Return for Final UFC Fight

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**Damon Martin** (1:02)
Welcome back to The Fighter vs. The Writer. I'm Damon Martin. He is UFC legend, Matt Brown. And Matt, we are officially living in a post-UFC 329 world where I guess technically you were proven wrong. Conor did make the walk, and he stepped into the octagon.

**Matt Brown** (1:16)
I was gonna say the opposite. I was kinda proving right, he didn't fight.

**Damon Martin** (1:20)
He didn't fight, no, he didn't fight.
Obviously, we got a lot of talk about today, of course. Conor blew out his knee. He did put out a statement this morning, which I'm glad timing-wise we're able to talk about. He said, you know, surgery, rehab, get back to martial arts training, final fight of my contract, and pretty clear, we'll get into the nuts and bolts of what that means for the future. But I gotta ask, initial impressions, man, after all this, all five years away, the fall start against Michael Chandler, coming back, fighting Max Holloway, going all fight week long, everything, and then it all ends like that.

**Matt Brown** (1:51)
Yeah, it was kind of amazing, man. It was, you know, it was lightning in a bottle when he came around in what, 14 or 15, 16 era and, you know, kind of changed the world and it's just, he's not been able to get back on track since, man. I don't know if maybe fame ruins people or the money or the, his choices in life or whatever, but boy, what a rough road it's been, his last five, six years. In terms of fighting, I mean, you know, we call it a rough road, but he's also like sitting on his yacht, you know, enjoying life, right? It's like, okay, well, you know, it could be worse.

**Damon Martin** (2:29)
Yeah. What do you make? Cause I know a lot of people will ask, like, cause you know, Conor, like throughout his career, like not saying Conor never throws kicks, but Conor's obviously well known for boxing. Like he's got fast hands. It's always his biggest weapon, but to come out and throw that spinning roundhouse out right out of the gate, jumping roundhouse kick, and we saw him practicing in the back. Clearly that was his plan to go out there and do that on minute one. That was his first movie planned in the back, which by the, I mean, we can, we can play conspiracy theory but like I've seen enough video and heard from enough people saying like he was an injury. I mean, listen, when you can see the video, his knee popped, like, I don't think he faked that. Like, I don't think he went in there like an injury. Like he is, you could literally see the video, his knee popping.
I mean, freak occurrence or is this just like, I know Sean Strickland said this on Twitter. He was like, yeah, I'm not calling, I'm not saying this is what it is. He was like, I do know guys who've used steroids for a lot of years, their body kind of falls apart. I don't want to put those accusations out there. I'm just saying like, is this just a freak occurrence or is this just a culmination of like, just, you know, Conor's body just not being what it once was?

**Matt Brown** (3:29)
Yeah, well, certainly the steroids could play a role. I think that's absolutely a legitimate argument. You know, the fact is, it does affect your tendons more than anything, right? Like that's the biggest issue with steroids. You know, and also, you know, with his other injuries, the cortisone shots, the non-anabolic steroids, right? Just as the not, what, how would they call it? Anti-inflammatory, non-steroidal or whatever. But yeah, but it's a, you know, that could play a role.
But honestly, I think more than anything, like the reason that that happened is, you know, I think Conor was nervous. I thought Max said it perfect. I think he was weak in the knees. Like he was nervous.