Tom Aspinall weighs in on McGregor-Holloway, leaning on vintage grappling in UFC 329 main event

What started as a prediction about a single matchup has turned into a broader read on how Conor McGregor might return to the UFC in “vintage” form. Ahead of UFC 329, Tom Aspinall, the promotion’s heavyweight champion, said he believes McGregor can succeed against Max Holloway by using the kind of control that defined their first meeting in 2013, even though the rematch is presented as a welterweight main event on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Aspinall’s framing matters because it reflects a specific contrast between styles. In 2013, McGregor defeated Holloway after using grappling to disrupt Holloway’s rhythm, a factor Aspinall singled out when describing what he expects to be McGregor’s path to success again. According to MMA Junkie, Aspinall pointed to how Holloway looked in his most recent outing, saying it did not appear “great” against Charles Oliveira and that the context of fighting a grappler may have shaped how Holloway looked.

Aspinall’s comments also came with a confidence level grounded in familiarity rather than general belief. “When McGregor is in form, he’s absolutely unreal,” Aspinall said in an interview posted to YouTube, per MMA Junkie. He also referenced their established history, adding that McGregor has already beaten Holloway before, and that the rematch sets up a question of whether the striking will dominate or whether grappling will reappear as the deciding lever.

The heavyweight champion’s outlook is shaped by more than that first bout. Aspinall argued that when Holloway is dealing with grappling threats, certain aspects of his performance can change, even if the end result does not necessarily mean his striking intelligence is gone. MMA Junkie reported Aspinall saying that, “when it’s all striking,” McGregor’s striking IQ matters, particularly because he “doesn’t get hit much,” framing McGregor’s overall game as an interplay of danger and disruption.

Aspinall’s boldness also includes the risk McGregor’s return introduces: inactivity. McGregor is coming back after a long layoff, and Aspinall acknowledged that returning to a fight against an active opponent is inherently “up against it,” per MMA Junkie. Still, his confidence did not read like a guess. He emphasized that “power doesn’t leave,” suggesting that McGregor needs only one clean moment to tilt a fight, and he indicated he is leaning toward a McGregor win.

For UFC 329, the immediate storyline is the shape of the matchup itself. A grappling-first plan would make the fight less about isolated exchanges and more about positional control, pace-setting, and moments to take away Holloway’s preferred range. If McGregor follows the same broad template Aspinall believes worked before, the key question becomes whether Holloway can solve for that control and whether Holloway’s own offense can force McGregor to prioritize striking instead.

What to watch next is how early the fight confirms the matchup chess match. If McGregor can land takedown entries and sustain control, Aspinall’s theory gains credibility. If Holloway keeps it standing and repeatedly resets the distance, the prediction becomes harder to sustain. Either way, UFC 329 is positioned as more than a single main event, it is a high-visibility test of how quickly McGregor can reestablish the patterns that turned his first Holloway fight into a win.