Don’t overthink it.

The last time we saw Conor McGregor in a UFC Octagon—over five years ago now—he was already a shell of himself. He looked flat-footed and labored. He was uncomfortable, unable to take punishment.

When he first returned to rematch Dustin Poirier in January 2021, he looked sharp—for a few minutes, anyway. It didn’t take long for him to wilt, getting stopped in just the second round for the first knockout loss of his career. Their trilogy that summer appeared to be toward the same fate before McGregor’s left leg snapped in a freak injury, the kind that no fighter has ever fully recovered from.

If you had preserved that version of McGregor in a cryogenic chamber and broke him out today, I’d still pick Max Holloway to beat him comfortably. That would be the best-case scenario: that Conor hasn’t missed a beat. But he almost certainly has. He’s missed far more than that.

Picking Conor McGregor means asking a 38-year-old coming off career-altering injuries and years of debauchery to pull himself together and turn the clock back not five years, but ten. At the very least, you’re giving him the benefit of the doubt that he’s been putting in the work and taking this fight seriously.

But when you hear him talk about how he’d beat Jon Jones and Georges St-Pierre, how he can “destroy Max inside 10 seconds,” or brag about knocking out more training partners than ever before, you don’t get the impression of someone who’s busted his ass in the gym and been properly humbled in an effort to return to form.

After losing to Poirier in 2021, he blamed inactivity: “It’s hard to overcome inactivity over long periods of time… You don’t get away with being inactive in this business.” That was after one year away. Now, after five, he’s singing a different tune: “I feel a lot fresher than these opponents. I’ve had my time of rest. I feel I’m coming into my prime now.”

You don’t take five years off and pick up right where you left off against one of the best strikers in the sport. This should all be common sense, except Holloway has shrunk to just a -260 favorite since the line first opened.

If his recent comments are any indication, McGregor is going to bum-rush Holloway from the opening bell. Even if Holloway entertains a few wild early exchanges, I’d still favor Max there. He’s far too quick and reactive in the pocket, and it only takes one clean shot to knock Conor off his pivot. From there, very few fighters are more adept than Holloway at smelling blood and applying pressure accordingly.

More likely, though, he plays it smart: staying patient, maintaining range, and letting McGregor punch himself out. We’ve seen Holloway slip Dustin Poirier’s counters and weather Justin Gaethje’s bombs in recent memory; even Ilia Topuria needed three rounds to finally pin him down. It’s nearly impossible to imagine Holloway, at this stage of his career, walking face-first into a telegraphed McGregor left hand.

McGregor is going to empty his gas tank early—for him, that probably means sometime late in the first round—and from there he’s a sitting duck. Once Holloway takes back control of the Octagon, he pours on volume with the effect of an avalanche, one that Conor McGregor can no longer withstand.