{"id":361431,"date":"2026-06-17T21:01:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T02:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/conor-mcgregor-reportedly-skips-stephen-a-smith-interview-as-ufc-comeback-nears"},"modified":"2026-06-17T21:02:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T02:02:02","slug":"conor-mcgregor-reportedly-skips-stephen-a-smith-interview-as-ufc-comeback-nears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/conor-mcgregor-reportedly-skips-stephen-a-smith-interview-as-ufc-comeback-nears","title":{"rendered":"Conor McGregor Reportedly Skips Stephen A. Smith Interview as UFC Comeback Nears"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"text\">\n<p>Conor McGregor\u2019s media tour has hit a messy turn just weeks before his planned UFC return.<\/p>\n<p>The former two-division UFC champion was reportedly scheduled to appear on ESPN\u2019s <em>First Take<\/em> with Stephen A. Smith on Tuesday, but never showed up.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pagesix.com\/2026\/06\/17\/celebrity-news\/conor-mcgregor-stands-up-stephen-a-smith-ditches-espn-appearance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Page Six<\/a> reported that McGregor was expected at ESPN\u2019s Hudson Square studios in New York and that his team did not provide an explanation for the missed appearance.<\/p>\n<p>The absence stood mainly because McGregor is in the middle of a high-profile promotional stretch for his UFC comeback. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ufc.com\/event\/ufc-329\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UFC<\/a> lists McGregor vs. Max Holloway 2 for UFC 329 on July 11 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, a rematch of their 2013 bout and McGregor\u2019s first fight since his 2021 leg injury against Dustin Poirier.<\/p>\n<h2>The ESPN Appearance Was Supposed to Promote His Comeback<\/h2>\n<p>A <em>First Take<\/em> appearance with Smith would have put McGregor in front of a large sports audience less than a month before UFC 329. Page Six said ESPN and McGregor\u2019s representatives declined to comment on the missed interview.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thespun.com\/mma\/report-conor-mcgregor-stood-up-espns-stephen-a-smith\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Spun<\/a> also picked up the report, framing the no-show as another unpredictable moment around McGregor\u2019s long-delayed return. The UFC\u2019s official event page still lists the Holloway fight, so the missed ESPN spot does not change the scheduled bout.<\/p>\n<p>McGregor defeated Holloway by unanimous decision in 2013, and their second meeting is now scheduled more than a decade later, after McGregor\u2019s long layoff and Holloway\u2019s own career shift into veteran-star territory.<\/p>\n<h2>McGregor Has Been Talking About the Long Road Back<\/h2>\n<p><noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Conor McGregor BREAKS SILENCE on UFC Return, &#039;Hitting Rock Bottom,&#039; New Contract, Bud Crawford Fight\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/e8j5nuTwWWQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p>\n<p>McGregor has still appeared elsewhere during the promotional run. In a recent interview on <em>The Ariel Helwani Show<\/em>, he spoke about hitting \u201crock bottom\u201d after the leg break and rebuilding himself physically and mentally for the comeback.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/talksport.com\/mma\/4339060\/conor-mcgregor-ufc-fight-injury-ariel-helwani-max-holloway\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TalkSport<\/a> covered the interview and noted that McGregor described the years after the Poirier injury as a difficult stretch before the Holloway booking finally gave him a return date.<\/p>\n<p>UFC 329 remains scheduled for July 11 at T-Mobile Arena, with McGregor and Holloway still listed as the headline matchup.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> <br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/wealthofgeeks.com\/conor-mcgregor-reportedly-skips-stephen-a-smith-interview-as-ufc-comeback-nears\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Conor McGregor\u2019s media tour has hit a messy turn just weeks before his planned UFC return. The former two-division UFC champion was reportedly scheduled to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":361434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4557],"tags":[36508,1941,36507,14953,171,36506,36504,419,36509,36041,36505],"class_list":["post-361431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing","tag-ariel-helwani","tag-conor-mcgregor","tag-dustin-poirier","tag-espn","tag-las-vegas","tag-max-holloway","tag-media-tour","tag-new-york","tag-official-occasion-web-page","tag-stephen-a-smith","tag-stephen-a-smith-interview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361431"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":361433,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361431\/revisions\/361433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}