Conor McGregor vs. Max Holloway 13 years ago: What happened, the injury, what came next?

Thirteen years before their rise to stardom, Conor McGregor and Max Holloway met in a UFC Fight Night event in 2013, a matchup far removed from main-event status or widespread attention. At the time, McGregor was just 25 years old with a single UFC victory to his name—a quick knockout of Marcus Brimage in Sweden earlier that year—yet he was already receiving the type of promotional treatment typically reserved for established stars. The then-newcomer had been featured cruising down the Las Vegas Strip in a Ferrari with UFC CEO Dana White and had appeared on Ireland's "Late, Late Show" billed as an "Irish Muhammad Ali." Despite the hype surrounding McGregor's early career, this first encounter with Holloway was not positioned as a marquee clash, and neither fighter had the tattoos, fame, or mainstream recognition they would later accumulate. The fight would prove significant in retrospect, marking an early chapter in what would become two of the UFC's biggest names.