The Body Says No: Every UFC Main Event Ended by Injury
Published on July 12th, 2026 9:00 pm ESTWritten By: Dave Manuel
Conor McGregor's five-year comeback ended at 1:09 of the first round at UFC 329, when the knee beneath his opening flying kick gave out and handed Max Holloway a TKO in the most anticipated main event in years. It puts the rematch in the strangest club in the sport: the seventeen UFC main events ended not by a punch or a submission but by a body breaking on its own - Anderson Silva's shin, the Korean Zombie's shoulder mid-punch in a title fight, two fights over inside fifteen seconds, three no contests by eye poke including the only title fight ever erased that way, and now McGregor twice. We ranked the five that define the club, tabled all seventeen with official times, and charted the uncomfortable trend: they are happening nearly twice as often since 2020.
Sports-King · Official Injury Report · Main Events Only
The Main Event Is Over
Conor McGregor's comeback lasted one flying kick and sixty-nine seconds, and it joined the strangest club in the UFC: the seventeen main events the body cancelled - every snapped shin, blown knee, popped shoulder, broken rib and poked eye that ever ended the last fight of the night.
Five years and one day after leaving the octagon on a stretcher, Conor McGregor came back to it on Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena, walked out to Hypnotize in front of a sold-out UFC 329 crowd, opened the rematch with Max Holloway by launching a flying left kick - the first technique of his comeback - and landed on a knee that simply quit. He tried to stand on it, looked at the referee, and the most anticipated main event in years was over at 1:09 of the first round, a TKO for Holloway in a fight that never really got to happen. It felt unprecedented. It is anything but. Across UFC history, seventeen main events - the headline fight, the one the whole card exists to deliver - have ended not with a knockout or a submission but with a body breaking on its own terms: Anderson Silva's shin snapping against a checked kick, the Korean Zombie's shoulder leaving its socket mid-punch in a title fight, a heavyweight title defense called off because the champion could not see, and two separate fights that ended inside fifteen seconds. This is the complete file - every one of them, ranked, tabled and timed - and the uncomfortable trend hiding inside it: they are happening faster than ever.
OUTLATEST DESIGNATION - McGREGOR, C. (KNEE): ruled out at 1:09 of Round 1, UFC 329, July 11, 2026. Entry seventeen, filed below.
Main Events Ended17
Knees7
No Contests3
Fastest Ending0:15
The Anatomy
Before the case files, the census. Seventeen main events across eighteen years, sorted by the part that failed - and the knee is running away with it. Scope matters here, so we state ours plainly, borrowing the standard the record-keepers use: this file counts injuries that ended fights outside the normal sequence of combat - the freak breaks, buckles and fouls. Knockouts, submissions, corner stoppages and cut stoppages from clean strikes are a different, ordinary kind of ending, and they are not in this table.
Where the body quit: 17 main events by failure point
Seven knees, including four in a single 26-month stretch from Rakic to Perez, and now McGregor's. The three eye entries are all accidental fouls, and all three fights were declared no contests - including the only UFC title fight ever wiped out that way.
1
The freshest wound in the file
The Wait5 years, 1 day
The OpenerA flying kick
The KneeGave on landing
The Clock1:09
Holloway Now1-1 vs Conor
The CallA trilogy, maybe
The signature: the first technique Conor McGregor threw in five years was the last one his knee would allow
Everything about Saturday night was engineered for a coronation - International Fight Week, T-Mobile Arena, the Hall of Fame ceremony two days earlier, McGregor walking out to a sold-out roar for his first fight since the leg break of July 10, 2021, five years and one day before. Then he threw the very first technique of his comeback, a flying left kick at Max Holloway, landed awkwardly, and the knee that had carried him through half a decade of rehabilitation surrendered on the spot. He tried briefly to continue, then looked to the referee himself. Holloway, who lost a unanimous decision to a 25-year-old McGregor thirteen years ago - a fight in which McGregor famously tore his ACL and won anyway - now stands 1-1 in the series without landing the blow that ended it. His post-fight words carried the whole strange mercy of the club this fight just joined: he said he had told the referee mid-sequence that McGregor was done and to let it go, hoped the injury was not too serious, and called for a trilogy. Whether the third fight ever happens now belongs to the same knee that ended the second one.
2
The archetype every entry gets measured against
The FighterAnderson Silva
The MoveA leg kick
The DefenseA checked knee
The ResultTibia + fibula
The ImageUnforgettable
The EraOver that night
The signature: the greatest middleweight ever threw a kick he had thrown ten thousand times, and his shin broke in half on Chris Weidman's knee
December 28, 2013 remains the reference point - the most grotesque and consequential injury ending in the sport's history. Anderson Silva, six months removed from losing his belt and his aura to Chris Weidman's left hook, was rebuilding the rematch on leg kicks when Weidman checked one with a raised knee, and Silva's shin - tibia and fibula both - snapped against it. The champion crumpled, the arena went quiet in a way title fights never are, and the greatest run in UFC history was functionally finished at 1:16 of the second round. The medical odyssey that followed (a titanium rod, a year away, a return that never resembled the original) turned one checked kick into the sport's permanent cautionary image. Every fighter who has thrown a low kick since has done it with a small piece of Sacramento's Chris Weidman living rent-free in his shin.
3
The biggest star, the loudest break
The TrilogyPoirier 2, Conor 1
The MomentFinal second of R1
The BreakTibia + fibula
RuledDoctor stoppage
Conor's DemandNot a retirement
The ExitOn a stretcher
The signature: the round ended, the leg did not - McGregor was ruled out on his stool, and insisted the record say injury rather than surrender
The rubber match with Dustin Poirier was the biggest fight the UFC could make in 2021, and it ended with the sport's biggest star sitting on the canvas, leg bent where legs do not bend, waving off the notion that he had lost. Late in a first round Poirier had largely controlled, McGregor stepped back onto his left leg and it gave - a clean break of the tibia and fibula, the same pairing as Silva's - with the horn sounding almost simultaneously. The fight was officially stopped between rounds by the doctor, a distinction McGregor demanded from his stool: an injury stoppage, not a retirement. He left on a stretcher, promising the feud was not over. It took five years and a day for him to fight again, and when he did, the ending was in this same file, three entries up.
4
The cruelest timing in the file
The StakesA title shot
The WaitYears of earning it
The MomentMid-punch, R4
The InjuryDislocated shoulder
He TriedTo pop it back
RuledTKO, strikes
The signature: the Korean Zombie threw a punch in his first title fight and his shoulder left its socket on the way
Chan Sung Jung had fought his way from cult hero to a featherweight title shot against prime Jose Aldo in Rio - the biggest night of his career, years in the earning. Midway through the fourth round, he threw a punch and his shoulder dislocated in the act of throwing it. What followed was the most quietly heartbreaking sequence in this file: the Zombie, mid-title-fight, trying to jam his own arm back into its socket while Aldo closed in. The finish was officially ruled a TKO by strikes - Aldo swarmed the wounded arm - but the record-keepers and everyone watching knew the fight ended when the socket did. The injury required surgery; he tore the same shoulder again years later. Of all seventeen entries, this is the one where the body chose the cruelest possible moment.
5
The first title fight ever erased by a foul
The ChampTom Aspinall
First DefenseUndisputed HW belt
The FoulBoth eyes at once
Recovery WindowFive minutes
RuledNo contest
UFC FirstTitle fight NC
The signature: Aspinall is the only man in this file twice - a 15-second knee as a contender, and a title reign interrupted by two fingers
Tom Aspinall's first defense of the undisputed heavyweight title, in Abu Dhabi in October 2025, lasted four minutes and thirty-five seconds of building violence before Ciryl Gane's outstretched fingers caught both of his eyes at once. Aspinall was given the full five-minute recovery window, told referee Jason Herzog he still could not see out of his right eye, and the fight was waved off - the first UFC title fight in history ruled a no contest because of an accidental foul. The aftermath was as messy as the ending: the Abu Dhabi crowd booed, Aspinall - swearing on the microphone that the fight was just getting going - went to the hospital, Gane apologized to everyone including himself, and half the sport debated whether a champion should have continued half-blind. History will note the debate and keep the asterisk. It will also note the crueler symmetry: Aspinall is the only fighter to appear on both sides of this file, having lost a main event to his own knee in fifteen seconds in 2022, then kept his belt through a no contest he never wanted three years later.
All Seventeen
Every UFC main event ended by an unforeseen injury, in order. Gold rows are the numbered pay-per-view cards - the biggest stages. Red rows are the three no contests, where a foul injured a man and the record simply shrugged.
| # | Date | Event | Result | The Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oct 2008 | UFC 90 | Silva def. Cote - TKO (injury), R3 0:39 | OUTCote's knee tore mid-fight in one of the better efforts anyone gave prime Silva |
| 2 | Aug 2013 | UFC 163 | Aldo def. Jung - TKO (strikes), R4 2:00 | OUTThe Zombie's shoulder dislocated as he threw a punch in his first title fight |
| 3 | Dec 2013 | UFC 168 | Weidman def. Silva - TKO (injury), R2 1:16 | OUTTibia and fibula, on a checked kick - the archetype |
| 4 | Aug 2015 | UFC FN 74 | Holloway def. Oliveira - TKO (injury), R1 1:39 | OUTOliveira went down grabbing his neck, barely touched - first reported as an esophageal tear, later a recurring neck injury |
| 5 | Nov 2017 | UFC FN 120 | Poirier def. Pettis - TKO (injury), R3 2:08 | OUTPoirier's pressure broke one of Pettis's ribs in a grappling exchange |
| 6 | Sep 2019 | UFC FN 159 | No contest - R1 0:15 | NCRodriguez poked Stephens in the eye 15 seconds in; Mexico City pelted the cage |
| 7 | Sep 2020 | UFC FN 178 | Covington def. Woodley - TKO (injury), R5 1:19 | OUTWoodley's rib broke on a takedown attempt after four one-sided rounds |
| 8 | Mar 2021 | UFC FN 187 | No contest - R2 0:18 | NCEdwards's accidental poke ended the biggest fight of Muhammad's career to date |
| 9 | Jul 2021 | UFC 264 | Poirier def. McGregor - TKO (doctor stoppage), R1 5:00 | OUTTibia and fibula on the final step of the round; ruled on the stool |
| 10 | May 2022 | UFC ESPN 36 | Blachowicz def. Rakic - TKO (injury), R3 1:11 | OUTRakic's knee buckled mid-exchange - a torn ACL, with a title shot in reach |
| 11 | Jul 2022 | UFC ABC 3 | Rodriguez def. Ortega - TKO (injury), R1 4:11 | OUTOrtega's shoulder dislocated as he escaped an armbar; Rodriguez lands on both sides of this table |
| 12 | Jul 2022 | UFC FN 208 | Blaydes def. Aspinall - TKO (injury), R1 0:15 | OUTOne kick, one step back, one knee - the fastest injury TKO in the file, a week after Ortega |
| 13 | Oct 2022 | UFC FN 213 | Allen def. Kattar - TKO (injury), R2 0:08 | OUTKattar landed a flying knee attempt awkwardly in R1, survived to the horn, and the knee quit 8 seconds into R2 |
| 14 | Sep 2023 | UFC FN 229 | Gamrot def. Fiziev - TKO (injury), R2 2:03 | OUTFiziev's knee gave as he extended on a body kick that landed on an elbow |
| 15 | Jun 2024 | UFC FN | Taira def. Perez - TKO (injury), R2 2:59 | OUTPerez's knee twisted as Taira dragged him down from a back-take; he left on a stretcher, like McGregor before him |
| 16 | Oct 2025 | UFC 321 | No contest - R1 4:35 | NCGane's accidental double eye poke ended Aspinall's first title defense - the only title-fight NC by foul in UFC history |
| 17 | Jul 2026 | UFC 329 | Holloway def. McGregor - TKO (injury), R1 1:09 | OUTThe comeback lasted one flying kick; Holloway asked the referee to let it go |
The Clock and the Curve
Two patterns fall out of the table on their own. The first is speed: seven of the seventeen never saw a second round, and two of those never saw the sixteenth second. The second is frequency, and it is the uncomfortable one - whatever combination of modern kicking games, calf-kick meta, five-round main events and accumulated mileage is responsible, the last seven years have produced nearly twice as many of these endings as the first twelve.
Round-one endings, by the clock
The seven first-round endings in the file. McGregor 2021 is the boundary case: he made it to the horn at 5:00, and was ruled out on his stool before round two - the only stoppage in the file to arrive between rounds.
The acceleration: injury-ended main events by era
Six endings in the file's first twelve years; eleven in the seven years since 2020, including three in the span of fifteen weeks in 2022. The 2022 featherweight division alone lost two number-one-contender fights to it in consecutive stretches - Ortega's shoulder and Kattar's knee.
The Record Book
The ledgers inside the ledger: the men this club keeps choosing, the calendar it prefers, the fighter who lived the whole file in one career, and the ones who refused to be in it.
The Beneficiaries ClubNobody has won more main events this way than Max Holloway and Dustin Poirier, with two apiece - and the symmetry between their pairs is uncanny. Holloway took the 2015 entry when Charles Oliveira went down grabbing his neck in Saskatoon, and took Saturday's when McGregor's knee quit in Las Vegas, eleven years apart. Poirier broke Anthony Pettis's rib with pressure in 2017 and inherited the McGregor leg break in 2021. Which means both halves of Holloway-Poirier - a fight that has actually happened - are two-time members, and Conor McGregor personally supplied one entry to each of them. Yair Rodriguez completes the club from both directions: he caused the 2019 no contest with his fingers and won the 2022 entry with Ortega's shoulder.
The July FileIf this club has a season, it is mid-July. Four of the seventeen endings - McGregor's leg on July 10, 2021, Ortega's shoulder on July 16, 2022, Aspinall's knee on July 23, 2022, and McGregor's knee on July 11, 2026 - fall inside a thirteen-day window of the calendar. That includes the only back-to-back-week pair in the file, the two Julys that both belong to McGregor, and the eerie detail that Saturday's ending came five years and one day after the leg break it descends from. International Fight Week may want to consult somebody about this.
The McGregor Trilogy (of Injuries)One career now spans the entire emotional range of this file. In 2013, a 25-year-old McGregor tore his ACL DURING the first Holloway fight and won a unanimous decision on it anyway - the injury that does not appear in this table because he refused to let it end the fight. In 2021, his tibia and fibula ended the Poirier trilogy and put him in the file the hard way. In 2024 came his first career withdrawal, from UFC 303. And in 2026, the comeback lasted sixty-nine seconds. The man who once fought through a torn ACL has now had his last two fights, five years apart, ended by his own legs - which is either the saddest arc in the sport or its most complete sentence about time.
The Ones Who RefusedFor scope and for respect, the file notes its near-misses. Rich Franklin broke his arm blocking a Chuck Liddell kick at UFC 115 and knocked Liddell out in the same round anyway. The Korean Zombie fought on with a dislocated shoulder until Aldo's strikes forced the issue. Calvin Kattar finished a round on a ruined knee and talked the doctor into letting him try another. And famous horrors like Chris Weidman's leg break against Uriah Hall and Corey Hill's snapped shin are absent from the table for one reason only: they were not main events. The club is exclusive. That is the whole grim point of it.
Sports-King's Note
Now for the fine print. First, scope: this file counts UFC main events ended by unforeseen injury - freak breaks, buckles, dislocations and accidental fouls - and follows the record-keepers' standard convention in excluding TKOs from strikes, submission tapouts, corner and stool retirements from accumulated damage, and laceration stoppages, since those arrive as the intended result of an opponent's work. Two boundary entries are disclosed rather than hidden: UFC 163 is officially a TKO by strikes, but the dislocated shoulder mid-punch is why the finish happened and every contemporary account treats it so; and UFC 264 was stopped by the doctor between rounds at McGregor's stool, at his insistence that it be recorded as injury rather than retirement. Second, the seventeen-count runs from UFC 90 (2008) through UFC 329 (July 11, 2026) and matches the sport's standard chronology through 2023 with three verified additions since. Third, all dates, rounds and official times are as recorded by the promotion; the Perez injury description is kept general per the available accounts. Fourth, injuries reported after the fact (Rakic's and Cote's torn ACLs, Aspinall's suspected MCL, Oliveira's revised neck diagnosis) are labeled as post-fight findings, not cageside diagnoses.One Last Word
Seventeen main events, and not one of them ended the way fights are supposed to end - no knockout, no tap, no judge. Just a body reaching its own private verdict in front of twenty thousand witnesses, at the exact moment everything was staged for the opposite. The sport sells inevitability: the build, the walkout, the violence resolved on merit. This file is the rebuttal it keeps in a drawer.
McGregor will get scans and, knowing him, make announcements. Holloway will wait on a trilogy that would somehow be the least likely third fight ever booked and the most watched. Aspinall and Gane will run back the only title fight a foul ever erased. And somewhere down the schedule, a main eventer will plant a foot or throw a kick he has thrown ten thousand times, and the seventeen will quietly become eighteen. The body keeps its own rankings. Nobody has ever made weight against it.
