Conor McGregor is scheduled to make his long-awaited return to the Octagon in the main event of UFC 246 in January, and UFC president Dana White has already spoken out over the Irishman's plans for the rest of the year. 

McGregor will return to the cage to face Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone, who began his pursuit of 'The Notorious' back in January, earlier this year. 

To the surprise of many fans, McGregor's face-off with Cerrone will be a welterweight fight. The former two-division champion hasn't competed in that weight class for over three years, and so this prompted many people to question his plans for 2020. 

Several fans and pundits quickly concluded that McGregor's return to the 170lb division shows that he wants to fight current BMF titleholder Jorge Masvidal, whom White had previously said was 'too big' for McGregor to face.

During an appearance on 101.6-FM in Washington, D.C., as per Express, White revealed that McGregor is keen on facing the "Baddest Motherf****r in the Game.

Conor has told me he definitely wants a fight with Masvidal.

"So we'll see what happens."

McGregor's bout with Cerrone will be his first since losing his UFC 229 grudge match against Khabib Nurmagomedov last October. 

Despite his desires to take on Masvidal, the 31-year-old is also set on taking revenge against his successor at the summit of the lightweight division.

In an appearance on the Jim Rome Show, as per Express, White said: "What Conor wants to do is, he wants to get this fight under his belt, and if he beats 'Cowboy,' he wants to turn around as quickly as possible and fight Khabib."

After three very convincing victories in 2019, the most recent of which saw him defeat Nate Diaz at UFC 244, Masvidal is keen to get the biggest fights available to him.

A showdown with McGregor would undoubtedly bring Masvidal the biggest paycheck of his 16-year career, though, he hasn't been going out of his way to fight the Dubliner.

In an appearance on The Dan Le Batard Show, talking about McGregor, Masvidal said: "To be quite frank, he was flirting with fighting the winner when the possibility of the winner was Nate.

"And he kept throwing it out there. He even made his prediction and he thought Nate would win.

"Since I've won, he hasn't said a peep to address me or nothing. I'm not a bully, either. I'm not going to be one of those cyberbullies. If you don't want to fight, I don't want to fight."

McGregor is currently scheduled to face Cerrone on January 18 in Las Vegas.