Roddy: McGregor ‘eager to set fight date’ after UFC 223 charges were dropped

On Thursday, former UFC two-division champion Conor McGregor was cleared from all felony charges stemming from his UFC 223 bus attack. After pleading guilty to one count of disorderly conduct, “The Notorious” will no longer serve jail time, and will only need to go through five days of community service and three days of anger management.

With this major hurdle out of the way, McGregor is now dead set to get his career back on track, according to his striking coach Owen Roddy.

“That’s what we all envisaged would happen, and it’s just great to be able to get back to doing what we love to do,” Roddy told MMA Fighting. “Conor has been eager to get back out there; he’s been eager to get something in front of him, to set a date and to push for fight.”

“I think now that it’s out of the way, the potential for Conor to get back in there is very, very high.”

Roddy previously revealed that the negotiations for a title fight between McGregor and current champion Khabib Nurmagomedov has been “brewing up nicely.” Now, he is more optimistic that the fight can actually happen within 2018.

“I’m sure it’s all going to be negotiated now,” Roddy said. “I would like to see that fight this year and I think the frontrunner to be Conor’s opponent for his return is Khabib. As I said before, he’s eager to get something going, he’s been training hard.”

“He’s been doing all sorts of wrestling and jiu-jitsu — he’s just been enjoying his training. I’m sure he’s going to strike a deal with the UFC, and whenever he’s in there, we’ll be prepared.”

Upon getting hold of the information that McGregor is now free from all charges, Khabib issued a statement through MMAjunkie’s John Morgan, calling for the fight to happen in November in New York City.