DANA WHITE has broken his silence on the alleged leak of the date for Conor McGregor's clash with Michael Chandler.
An alleged screenshot of a countdown to the fight on the promotion's Fight Pass service started doing the rounds on social media on Sunday.
It showed McGregor vs Chandler being set for the promotion's final pay-per-view card of the year – UFC 296 – on December 16.
MMA fans around the world were abuzz at the apparent finalisation of the fight, but they really went wild when McGregor shared the screengrab to his Instagram story.
But White has poured cold water on the return of the Mac being a done deal, insisting the screengrab was an AI-faked image.
The 54-year-old said early on Wednesday morning: “I don’t know how that got out or whatever. It wasn’t from Fight Pass.
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“My team was telling me it was an AI. It wasn’t real.
"Obviously, if that was the case, you would have heard it from us first.”
Chandler was officially announced as the opponent for McGregor's eagerly-anticipated comeback fight back in February.
But the big-money brawl has yet to be finalised due to The Notorious' absence from the United States Anti-Doping Agency's drug testing pool – which he must be in for a minimum of six months before being eligible to compete.
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The UFC brass had initially hoped to have their poster boy headline UFC 296 until he missed the June deadline to get back in the testing pool for the required six months.
And White recently suggested the promotion has pivoted to 2024 for the former two-division champion's comeback.
During an appearance on Crain & Company, he said: "To not do that fight will be ridiculous.
"We're working on it. I'm hoping we can do it early next year."
McGregor, however, recently claimed he'd be back before year's end, telling talkSPORT: "December."
"Chandler next in December and then [Justin] Gaethje, BMF.
"And then we’ll do the Nate [Diaz] trilogy.”
McGregor, 35, hasn't set foot inside the octagon since breaking his leg in his trilogy fight with Dustin Poirier two years ago.
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