The double UFC world champion, charismatic, popular, and incorrigible Conor McGregor, is retiring from the sport of mixed martial arts. At least that’s what it looks like. The 36-year-old Irish fighter has apparently ended his career in the Octagon through a message on his social media account when an X user reminded McGregor that he has nothing left to fight for since he is already worth $200 million, owns multiple businesses, and has a beautiful family.

This observation inspired ‘The Notorious’ to re-tweet the message by his fan and add the caption, “Ya know what, you’re right, good bye.” Truly an unexpected response that makes it look like McGregor has come to the realization that he actually has nothing left to fight for. As a result, he retires from the sport with an MMA record of 22-6-0, with notable victories against the likes of Jose Aldo, Max Holloway, Nate Diaz, and many others.

Before his retirement, Conor McGregor’s last fight ended in defeat when he broke his leg against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 on July 10, 2021. Since then, he has been slated to fight Michael Chandler quite a few times; however, things never came to fruition, much to his frustrations. Many believed that a return was inevitable after McGregor called out Ilia Topuria after he retained his belt against Max Holloway at UFC 308.

McGregor asked the UFC to possibly book a fight between him and the Spanish-Georgian as he hit Dana White with a ‘Call me’ request through his social media right after the featherweight won his fight. However, the UFC CEO laughed it off by saying, “I don’t know [who McGregor called out]. I think he did it to get this – we’re all sitting here, going, ‘Huh? What did he mean?'”

McGregor even wanted a return in 2024, something that was refused by Dana White as he cleared the air by claiming that McGregor could not return before 2025. Maybe the tensions between ‘The Notorious’ and the UFC CEO have truly reached a boiling point. A possible motivation behind this sudden possible retirement. However, it is worth noting that McGregor has announced his retirement quite a few times, all of them through his social media, eliciting a large number of comments and reactions in each of them. So how many times has he retired so far?

A brief history of Conor McGregor’s retirement announcements

Conor McGregor’s first attempt at retirement was on April 19, 2016, just a month after his third loss as a professional, his first in the UFC. However, two days later, he retracted on Facebook and announced that he would continue. Back then, the Irishman was not yet as important a personality as he is now. In March of that year, he lost a fight against Nate Diaz, which led to his brief departure. Several months later, he took revenge and beat the American. Then, in November, he beat Eddie Alvarez and became the first simultaneous champion in UFC history, at which time he began to build his legend.

McGregor’s second retirement came in March 2019. After the fight against Eddie Alvarez in November 2016, McGregor went without a fight for almost two years. Without announcing his retirement at any time, ‘The Notorious’ made his foray into the world of boxing and faced Floyd Mayweather. He lost the fight by technical knockout and considered continuing or retiring but remained silent. In October 2018, he returned to the UFC to face Khabib Nurmagomedov, to whom he lost by submission in the fourth round.

After the controversy over the fight with Nurmagomedov, McGregor again announced his retirement with a brief message on Twitter. He was inactive for nine months, and in January 2020 he returned to the Octagon in style and knocked out Cerrone in 40 seconds. This victory made McGregor the only fighter to knock out his opponents in the featherweight, lightweight, and welterweight divisions.

McGregor’s third retirement came in June 2020. The pandemic affected the Irishman a lot, and in June 2020 he announced his goodbye, which seemed definitive. A few days later, rumors began to emerge about his return, and in November 2020, his return was confirmed for a second fight with Poirier, who beat the Irishman by KO in the second round. So this is McGregor’s fourth attempt at calling it quits on the UFC. But what do you think? Is he really serious this time around? Let us know in the comments.