Is 2020 Going to Be Conor McGregor's Best Year Ever in UFC?

Conor McGregor is making a comeback.

Speaking at a press conference in Moscow on Thursday morning, the Irish MMA star announced he has agreed to return to the UFC's Octagon on Jan. 18 in Las Vegas.

McGregor didn't specify who he'll be fighting, but ESPN's Ariel Helwani provided some clarity on that front.

According to Helwani, the front-runners for McGregor's next opponent are lightweights Justin Gaethje and Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone. After that, McGregor is reportedly hoping to fight the winner of the UFC 244 blockbuster between Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz. Presuming he wins both bouts, McGregor would face the winner of a yet-to-be-scheduled lightweight title fight between champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and challenger Tony Ferguson. 

It's an ambitious plan, but if it unfolds even close to the way McGregor imagines, 2020 could go down as one of the best years of his UFC career. It might even be the best.

When it comes to big years in the Octagon, McGregor has set the bar incredibly high for himself.

Look at his run in 2015. He started that year by knocking out Dennis Siver, which was nothing to write home about. But he knocked out Chad Mendes to claim the interim featherweight title in July, and he knocked out Jose Aldo to win the undisputed featherweight title five months later.

That win over Aldo, arguably the greatest fighter of all time, took McGregor only 13 seconds. It remains his signature win to this day. 

John Locher/Associated Press/Associated Press

Then there was McGregor's 2016 run. Sure, it began with a loss to Diaz, which deflated much of the hype he had gained by defeating Aldo. Yet after humbly owning up to that loss, he evened the score with Diaz, defeating his rival by majority decision in one of the most thrilling contests of the year. McGregor then capped off the year with an even bigger feat, trouncing Eddie Alvarez in November to capture the UFC lightweight belt and become the first fighter in UFC history to hold two UFC titles concurrently.

McGregor has had some historic years in the past, but 2020 could take the cake. 

Just imagine it.

McGregor starts the year by knocking out Cerrone or Gaethje. Doing so will not be easy, but both men have been knocked out before, and there's no reason to assume McGregor has lost any of his blinding speed or fight-altering punching power.

Then, imagine McGregor defeats Masvidal or Diaz. Again, he'll have his hands full with either man, but a victory is possible against either. He's already defeated Diaz once. Masvidal, on the other hand, has lost many times, although his recent victories over Darren Till and Ben Askren make that easy to forget. He is not unbeatable. 

With two huge victories in the rearview mirror, McGregor then steps into the cage to contend for the UFC lightweight title. If it's against Ferguson, that's big. If it's in a rematch with Nurmagomedov, that would be the biggest fight in UFC history. 

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If McGregor does compete in these three fights, 2020 will likely be the biggest year of his career. Yet it's the contrast that would make such a year so massive for the former two-division champion. 

Let's face it: The last few years have been ugly for McGregor. 

The 31-year-old hasn't won a fight since 2016. In the meantime, he's swirled into what looks like a career death spiral, accenting his lack of victories with a long list of legal troubles outside of competition. 

McGregor is currently the subject of two sexual assault investigations in Dublin, as Tariq Panja of the New York Times reported.

In late 2017, he stormed the cage and nearly fought a referee at Bellator 187. And who could forget the infamous dolly-throwing incident in early 2018?

Then there was his post-fight brawl with Nurmagomedov's team after their late 2018 bout. More recently, he smashed a fan's phone in Miami, and he punched a fellow patron inside a bar in Dublin. 

The man who once stood out as the brightest shining star in combat sports has seemingly lost all control of his career, failing to produce victories inside the cage and to stay out of trouble outside it. Yet with the first step of his comeback targeted for January and even bigger plans penciled into the subsequent pages of the 2020 calendar, McGregor perhaps could right his ship and achieve his best year yet.

He'll need to beat some dangerous fighters to make it happen, but it is possible. 

Will 2020 unfold the way Conor McGregor hopes? We'll begin to find out in January.