Conor McGregor returns….. to what exactly?

The UFC is the obvious answer, but to what and against who is the more layered and complex question.

McGregor confirmed on his Instagram account on Thursday that he plans on returning to the Octagon in the near future, saying that he is 'fighting again. Period'. McGregor's post also coincided with MMA Fighting’s Dave Meltzer report on the same day that discussions between McGregor and the UFC are going well; with the Dubliner set for a return to the cage sometime this year.

“The word is that negotiations with Conor McGregor are going well,” wrote Meltzer. “No deal to return has been inked but they are said to be not so far apart and are in talks about him doing two fights in 2018.”

It would seem that McGregor is poised for a return to MMA but what exactly is he returning to, and who is he returning against? And when? And where? The last time we saw McGregor inside the Octagon he had just secured the UFC lightweight title and immediately assumed the self-titled moniker of 'The Champ Champ', a two-weight world champion that set a personal mandate to spend the next 15 months doing whatever he pleased, however he saw fit. However, somewhere in the midst of his extended lay-off from MMA, McGregor started to drift further and further away from earth and closer towards the sun. There was his Aintree appearance. There was the Liverpool house party which saw him stand and pose on the hood of a rented car. There was the Mayweather fight. The 'dance for me boy' controversy. The Bellator cage invasion. The subsequent shoving match with Marc Goddard, who he later appeared to call a 'rat' on video. The homophobic slur towards Andre Fili. The 'celebrity' post. The speeding fine where he turned up to Blanchardstown District Court in an Adidas tracksuit, before paying tribute to prominent Irish criminal Martin 'The General' Cahill upon his departure, and once again later that day on social media. McGregor's life was seemingly in a spiral as he reaped the fruits of his own labour, but in October, he returned to SBG and resumed training with his longtime striking coach Owen Roddy. Initially, it looked as if his return to training was just to provide some stability to a life that was taking breakneck turns at every bend, but as the months went by, McGregor began teasing his comeback culminating in Thursday's post where he said he offered to fight Frankie Edgar at UFC 222 after UFC featherweight champion Max Holloway withdrew with a leg injury.   Negotiations appear to be very much in progress between McGregor and the UFC, but his return to MMA is arguably just as interesting as his rise in the sport. His ascent was movie-like, and before long, it was actually a movie, a studio backed feature documentary in which McGregor was credited as an executive producer. The documentary stuck to the narrative that the Dubliner has built and steadily developed since 2013; the plumber's apprentice that fulfilled his wildest dreams through hard work, self-belief and dedication, conveniently swerving around the not-so-flattering controversies along the way. The documentary was made to portray McGregor in a great light, which was inevitable given that he produced the film, and while it wasn't necessarily a bad watch, it was released at a time where real life events in his real life were infinitely more interesting than anything that what was shown on the big screen. But this next chapter for McGregor is just as interesting as his rise from Lucan to Las Vegas. With the guts of €140 million in the bank, and a whiskey business seemingly on the way, there is no reason for McGregor to fight. His journey through MMA was designed to make as much money as possible and win as much belts as possible. You could argue that he has achieved both, so why return? Why now? Firstly, there's an ego there that needs to be fed. Even during the midst of his lay-off, McGregor could not resist reminding the likes of Max Holloway of his dominance. https://twitter.com/TheNotoriousMMA/status/937366938032005122 The 29-year-old reached his MMA summit with a string of spectacular finishes, but he also lambasted everyone from Diego Brandao to Jose Aldo, and everyone in between. After occupying so much of the MMA media's attention for so long, it was seemingly hard for McGregor to start sharing the spotlight, and the tweet to Holloway after his second consecutive win over Aldo in December was sent as a not-so-subtle reminder to his former foe as to who came off best during a fight that they had over four years before Holloway's finest hour. Secondly, there's the fact that as much as McGregor wants to establish himself as an entrepreneur and a businessman, brand 'Conor McGregor' is still the business. Jay-Z, who McGregor is a noted fan of, had a line on Kanye West's Diamonds from Sierra Leone remix that said:

'I'm not a businessman, I'm a 'business'....maaaannnn!, let me handle my business damn'

The line can also be applied to McGregor in that he is essentially his own business, and while he can promote BetSafe and Hi-Smile and any number of companies that you will see flogged across his social media accounts, his best selling product is still the image of his left hand on someone else's jaw. McGregor may be at a stage where he could enter the whiskey market as a business owner, and he could easily retire and act as a promoter or pundit for any number of organisations, but all his current businesses and ventures are still tied largely to his fame and profile, and in order to maximise profits he needs to maintain his high profile, which, of course, is at an all-time high when he's fighting in outrageous spectacles in the octagon. Lastly, while some are convinced that McGregor makes every professional decision based off the financial gains he can receive in return - which is a fair theory given that he puts interviews on pay-per-view, charges fans absurd money for a meet and greet and a pair of signed gloves, and put his UFC career, and two of the organisations' championships on hold, to fight Floyd Mayweather for the gaudy 'money belt' - others believe that McGregor is driven by competition. They point to his rematch with Nate Diaz, which he insisted was at 170 lbs, instead of his preferred weight of 155 Ilbs. They point to Dana White's interview last summer where McGregor reportedly told the UFC President that he wanted to fight the undefeated Khabib Nurmagomedov in Russia. They point to the fact that he moved up in weight (even though he's a natural lightweight) to fight Eddie Alvarez and obliterated him inside two rounds. I'm more convinced that McGregor's return is based off financial incentives and ego, and that fighting is a much better alternative for him than what we saw from him in the public eye over the last 15 months, but maybe there's a desire from him to go down as the greatest of all time. To take on all comers. To beat Khabib. To defeat Tony Ferguson. To win a trilogy fight with Nate Diaz. To silence any and all doubters. There's different narratives around McGregor depending on who you ask, and what you watch, and who produces it, but this next chapter is as interesting as any in the McGregor story. What do you get the man who has €140 million? A fight. A real fight. Any real fight at all.