Conor McGregor heads to UFC 329 with Nikita Hand still at the center of the story around him. He is scheduled to face Max Holloway in Las Vegas after a five-year absence from fighting, and the return lands while the civil case fallout from November 2024 remains active.
The jury in Dublin found that McGregor sexually assaulted Hand in a Dublin hotel in December 2018. He was ordered to pay £206,000 plus damages, and he lost his civil jury appeal in July 2025.
November 2024 verdict
Hand won her claim against McGregor for damages for assault by rape in November 2024. In August 2025, she said she intended to sue McGregor and two other people for damages alleging malicious abuse of court processes.
Hand said she was “retraumatised over and over again” by the trial. Her planned damages lawsuit leaves the aftermath of the civil case moving through another legal stage even as McGregor shifts back toward fighting.
McGregor and UFC 329
McGregor said this week, “I’m an innocent man and I’ll stand for my innocence until the day I go out.” He also said, “It stings deep. I continue to fight. I know the truth and I know that lying lips are an abomination to the Lord and I know that anything in the darkness will soon come to light.”
He has not won since beating Donald Cerrone in 2020, and he has not fought since breaking his leg in defeat by Dustin Poirier in 2021. After an 18-month ban for missing three drugs tests within a 12-month period in 2024, his suspension ended in March.
Combat Sports Anti-Doping
Combat Sports Anti-Doping has tested McGregor 14 times this year, more than any other fighter on the UFC roster. That places the testing record alongside the legal fallout as he moves toward Sunday’s bout with Holloway in Las Vegas.
For McGregor, the practical picture is now split between the cage and the court record: a comeback fight at UFC 329, a damages award from November 2024, and a further civil case Hand says she plans to pursue.
