Henry Cejudo Says the UFC Should Release Conor McGregor Instead of Paying for His Final Fight
“Let him be a free agent. Let him make more money elsewhere, but let him not make money or take money from us.”
Henry Cejudo argues the maths no longer works in the Paramount era — and BKFC president David Feldman says McGregor's bare-knuckle debut is not guaranteed until he looks good in his last UFC bout.
Henry Cejudo says the UFC should cut Conor McGregor loose now — let him walk as a free agent — rather than pay him for the one fight left on his contract.
The former two-division champion made the case on this week's episode of Pound 4 Pound, the podcast he co-hosts with Kamaru Usman, and his argument was pure business. McGregor has one bout left on his UFC deal. Cejudo's advice to the promotion: don't pay for it.
"Let him be a free agent. Let him make more money elsewhere, but let him not make money or take money from us," Cejudo said.
Cejudo put the figure at $30 million — the purse he believes McGregor earns for his final contracted fight. McGregor was reportedly paid around $30 million for his last outing, the 69-second return at UFC 329, according to MMA Mania. UFC purses are not officially disclosed, and no source confirms $30 million for the final bout itself.
The maths, in Cejudo's telling, no longer works. "There's no more pay-per-view model, and this dude hasn't won a fight," he said. The UFC's seven-year, $7.7 billion rights deal with Paramount+ began in January 2026 and ended pay-per-view in the United States — the promotion now collects a fixed fee, so a McGregor headliner no longer brings per-buy revenue. With Paramount needing to make its money on the deal, Cejudo argued, the UFC should just cut him.
The record backs the cold version of the argument. McGregor is 1-4 in the UFC since his 2017 boxing match with Floyd Mayweather: a submission loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229, a 40-second knockout of Donald Cerrone at UFC 246, two stoppage losses to Dustin Poirier at UFC 257 and UFC 264, and the UFC 329 loss to Max Holloway. His last UFC win before that stretch was Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 in November 2016.
UFC 329, on July 11, 2026, was supposed to be the comeback. McGregor returned after a five-year layoff — his previous bout was UFC 264 on July 10, 2021 — to headline against Holloway at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. It lasted 69 seconds. McGregor hurt his right knee landing a jumping kick, his first strike of the fight; the knee buckled, he fell, and referee Mike Beltran stopped it at 1:09 of the first round. McGregor later confirmed a torn ACL and meniscus in the right knee, underwent surgery on August 5, and faces nine to 12 months of rehabilitation by his own account. The result evened his series with Holloway at one win each — McGregor won their first meeting in August 2013.
The second voice in the piece is David Feldman, the BKFC founder and president, who told talkSPORT that McGregor's bare-knuckle debut is not guaranteed. "Obviously he has to look good in this [next UFC] fight," Feldman said. "That's a big key. If something crazy happened, like what happened in his last fight, then I don't think a lot of people would be excited." A good showing is the condition, win or lose: "But if he comes out there and has a good fight, a very good fight, win or lose doesn't matter, everybody's going to be excited about Conor McGregor taking his gloves off."
Feldman added that there have been no talks yet about a BKFC debut and negotiations would only begin after McGregor's final UFC fight. McGregor is a minority owner of BKFC, a stake he has held since 2024.
Cejudo also sketched the leverage problem. "Let's say he does fight Justin Gaethje and somehow beats Justin Gaethje? Then the ball's on his court," he said — Gaethje is a hypothetical opponent Cejudo floated, not a booked fight. A win in his final UFC bout would raise McGregor's market value before he leaves, which is exactly why Cejudo wants the UFC to let him go now.
None of it, Cejudo stressed, means McGregor is worthless. "He's a cash cow, I get it," he said, crediting McGregor with changing the lives of the men who beat him — Nurmagomedov, Poirier and Nate Diaz among them. His argument is that the UFC no longer gets paid for that star power the way it once did.
As of Friday morning, McGregor has not publicly responded to Cejudo's suggestion, and no timeline has been set for his final UFC appearance. McGregor has said he wants that fight at International Fight Week in July 2027 and has called out Holloway for a trilogy, but nothing is booked and the UFC has announced no date or opponent. He had previously expressed interest in re-signing with the UFC before his latest comments about moving to bare knuckle once his deal is done.
Feldman, for his part, does not think the final UFC fight will be McGregor's last fight. "I don't think that [will be] his last fight," he said — and if McGregor looks good in it, the bare-knuckle door is open.
