Ask five former or reigning champions who wins Conor McGregor vs. Max Holloway on Saturday and you get five different fights. One has McGregor starching Holloway in the first round. One has Holloway making it "non-competitive" inside two minutes. The rest sit somewhere in between, and even the ones picking the same man can't agree on why.

That's what a 13-year-old rematch does when one of the two fighters hasn't competed in five years. McGregor (22-6 MMA, 10-4 UFC) returns at UFC 329 from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas to run it back with Holloway (27-9 MMA, 23-9 UFC), a welterweight main event 13 years in the making. The first meeting was a featherweight fight on Aug. 17, 2013, which McGregor won by unanimous decision after tearing his ACL in the second round and wrestling to the finish. Everyone in the sport has watched the same tape. They've arrived at wildly different places.

The bold end: Aspinall's first-round knockout

The loudest call comes from the heavyweight champion. Tom Aspinall watched McGregor's recent interviews and came away sold.

"When McGregor is in form, he's absolutely unreal," Aspinall said on his YouTube channel. He noted how outgrappled Holloway looked in his last fight, a five-round decision loss to Charles Oliveira at UFC 326 in March, and wondered whether McGregor might lean on the grappling that beat Holloway the first time. But his pick is pure violence: "I think Conor McGregor, Round 1 knockout. I think he's going to land the big left bomber on him."

Aspinall's own hedge is worth keeping: "I know it's just an interview, it doesn't really mean anything." He picked McGregor anyway, on the oldest logic in the sport. "The power doesn't leave. He needs one shot, and it could be over," he said.

The Mystic Mac loyalists

Dricus du Plessis won't pretend to be objective. The former middleweight champion told Fight Forecast he's a fan of both men and simply can't bring himself to bet against McGregor.

"I'm going with the Mac. I'm never going against him," du Plessis said. His reasoning is the same one-shot faith Aspinall leans on: "Conor has that scary timing. Everybody that's fought him says that. That timing, and he has that sneaky power. It just takes one. Ilia [Topuria] knocked out Max, so it can be done."

That last line keeps surfacing. Topuria stopped Holloway in the third round in October 2024, the first knockout loss of a career built on one of the best chins in the division. Every McGregor backer this week reaches for it eventually.

The cardio case for Holloway

Jorge Masvidal has heard the power arguments and isn't moved. The former two-time title challenger and BMF champion respects McGregor's tools; he just doesn't think McGregor can fire them for 25 minutes.

"You have a Ferrari vs. a Honda Civic, but the Ferrari has a quarter tank of gas, he's going to lose every time," Masvidal said on "Deep Waters." "I'm betting the house on Max. I think Max is going to make it non-competitive." Masvidal doesn't buy a repeat of the 2013 wrestling plan either, because wrestling is the most draining style there is: "You're moving weight that doesn't want to be moved, and it drains you."

Belal Muhammad, the former welterweight champion, lands on Holloway too, but with a strategy that turns the standup expectation on its head. He wants Holloway, the striker, to wrestle.

"For Holloway, I would definitely add in a takedown to wear on him to get past the first three or four minutes," Muhammad said on his YouTube channel, calling the opening the danger zone. "McGregor is going to come out hot ... five years off, extra muscle, higher weight class, I think his cardio is going to be even a bigger problem." It's a pointed ask: only two of Holloway's 27 wins have come by submission, and his grappling has been a defensive tool, not an offensive one. Muhammad still sees the upset path clearly, and again it runs through Topuria. "We've seen it's possible now," he said. "Just gotta find that spot." His final pick is Holloway by TKO.

The measured middle

Not everyone is willing to plant a flag. Chad Mendes, who fought McGregor exactly 11 years before this Saturday's rematch, thought McGregor was a made man who'd never fight again, and admits the comeback intrigues him.

"I do think it's difficult, but I don't think it's impossible," Mendes said, drawing on his own 2022 return to bare-knuckle boxing after four years away. "If you do the right things for enough time, a lot of it comes back. I don't think all of it does." Pushed for a pick, Mendes sides with Holloway to finish, but with a caveat the confident callers skip: he thinks it's "probably a little bit closer than (the odds say)."

Matt Brown, who spent years insisting McGregor would never fight again, now argues the doubt itself might sharpen him. "He's got to prove motherf*ckers wrong," Brown said on "The Fighter vs. The Writer." "This is putting him on the pressure cooker. He has to win this fight." Brown also sees method in the matchmaking. At 170 pounds, he argues, McGregor out-physicaled Holloway the first time with takedowns, so coming back at the bigger weight class makes sense. His pick still lands on Holloway, but he won't discount McGregor finding a way.

Henry Cejudo skipped the pick entirely and went full coach. The former two-division champion posted three keys for McGregor: attack the body to drain Holloway's famous gas tank, vary the looks so Holloway can't build his reads, and land something heavy early "that makes Max think twice before coming forward." It's a blueprint that only works if the man executing it is close to who he used to be, the exact question no one can answer until the cage door shuts.

What our model says

The pundit cluster leans slightly toward Holloway, and so do we, quietly. The market has McGregor a +210 underdog. Our 4-input model lands on Holloway at 55.8%, a LOW-confidence lean, closer to Mendes' "a little bit closer" read than to anyone's bold call. Read it as a nudge toward Holloway, not a conviction pick. The display model was more bullish at 70.9% and tagged the fight HIGH; the cautious 4-voice stack pulled it back toward a coin flip, and after the Topuria card, we trust the cautious voice. A fighter returning from five years away and a broken leg is exactly the profile our numbers refuse to be loud about. As of July 2026, our live 2026 record sits at 68.8% on all picks (174-79) and 82.67% on LOCK and HIGH-conviction calls (62-13, n=75). This one is neither, on purpose.

The honest read on Saturday: the fight world is split because the central variable can't be modeled from the outside. Nobody knows which McGregor arrives. The champions picking him are betting on the one shot that never leaves. The champions picking Holloway are betting on the 25 minutes McGregor hasn't fought in half a decade. Both can be right about the man and land on opposite winners, which is the whole reason this fight sold.