KSI reveals Conor McGregor turned down boxing match against him: ‘He’s all over the place’

KSI is no stranger to setting up marquee boxing matches but he thought he was nearing a deal for perhaps the biggest fight in the sport with hopes that he would welcome Conor McGregor back to the ring.

The social influencer turned combat sports enthusiast was trying to set up the fight against McGregor at Alcatraz Island near San Francisco but ultimately the Irish superstar passed on the opportunity. McGregor previously addressed the opportunity without naming KSI as the opponent when he addressed his potential return to action back in March.

“I’m happy with what I’ve done,” McGregor said. “There was an opportunity or a deal, we’ll say, to fight in Alcatraz only recent. There’s an event going on in Alcatraz in I believe June. And they came to me and it wasn’t my worth.”

Addressing the proposed matchup, KSI claims he never heard for certain why McGregor actually passed on the fight but he also knows the former two-division UFC champion has a lot happening right now outside of combat sports.

“We had a fight set up and Conor said no,” KSI said on the Misfits Boxing YouTube channel after the promotion’s latest event. “I don’t know, it could be money, it could be his mindset. It could be a lot of reasons.

“Honestly, I don’t think he knows what he’s going to be doing the next day. He’s all over the place. One minute he wants to be the prime minister of Ireland, the next he wants to do a random side quest. Who cares. It is what it is. But let him do his thing. It is what it is. I’m going to just move on and do me.”

There have been a lot of doubts about whether McGregor is ever going to compete again or not, especially after he dropped out of a proposed fight against Michael Chandler in 2024 due to a broken toe. In the aftermath of that fight falling apart, McGregor has been primarily focused on building up BKFC as one of the co-owners of the bare-knuckle promotion and focusing on a run at becoming the President of Ireland.

Even UFC CEO Dana White cast doubt on McGregor’s chances to return when he recently stated that he didn’t expect the 36-year-old fighter to compete again “anytime soon.”

While McGregor’s future in fighting appears in doubt, KSI promised that he’s working hard on his return to the ring but an injury is going to keep him sidelined for the immediate future.

He previously had a fight scheduled against Dillon Danis back in March but dropped out of the fight due to illness.

Now KSI says he’s been suffering through a hand injury that’s going to require him to have surgery before he can truly prepare for his return to the ring.

“For me, I want to fight again,” KSI said. “I just need to fix my hand. I’ve told my audience, I’ve told a lot of people, I can’t punch. Every time I push [my index finger] in, it hurts. I’ve had this injury for about a year. I’ve tried to fight through it, it just doesn’t work.

“I think for me now, I’m going to have surgery, get that sorted and then slowly get some rehab just to get it back to where it was again. Where I was knocking people out and then we can go from there and then we can have the big fights again. For right now, I think I’m going to be out for a bit.”