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Dustin Poirier avenged his loss to Conor McGregor and won by far the biggest victory of his career.
The Eternal UFC lightweight contender shocked McGregor, defeating him via TKO after swarming him with punches at 2:32 of the second round on Saturday night at the main event of UFC 257 in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.
Poirier first injured McGregor in the right leg with calf kicks. With McGregor’s leg compromised, Poirier pulled off a series of hard-hitting combinations. The final blow was a right hand shovel that dropped McGregor. Poirier followed from the field and referee Herb Dean stepped in to call him, marking the first KO or TKO loss in McGregor’s 13-year career.
“We’re 1-1,” said Poirier, who entered the fight as an underdog over 275. “Maybe we have to do it again.”
Current lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov has made it clear he intends to retire, but if he relinquishes the belt, Poirier has now taken the lead for a title shot.
“I think it’s a title fight,” Poirier said. “I am the champion.”
UFC President Dana White said in his post-fight press conference that he believed Poirier will fight Michael Chandler for the lightweight title next, adding that a recent conversation with Nurmagomedov about about his future at the UFC “didn’t seem too positive.”
“He said to me, ‘Dana, be honest with yourself. I’m so above these guys, I beat these guys, “” White said of his interview with Nurmagomedov. “I don’t know. But it doesn’t sound very positive. We’ll see.”
“I’m going to talk to Khabib and see if he wants to defend this title,” White added. “And if he doesn’t, I won’t push him anymore.”
ESPN had Poirier ranked No. 3 and McGregor No. 10 in the world at 155 pounds.
McGregor and Poirier had fought before, with McGregor winning a featherweight match by TKO in the first round at UFC 178 in 2014.
McGregor had a solid first round. He landed several hard left hands and a nice right hook shovel that snapped Poirier’s head back. Poirier took down McGregor, but McGregor got back on his feet with relative ease.
The two fought in the clinch, with McGregor landing shoulder strikes, like the ones he injured Donald Cerrone with a year ago. Poirier lost the round, but he landed some hard calf kicks, which came into play later.
In the second round, McGregor pulled off some tough combos but struggled to verify Poirier’s calf kick. McGregor began to catch Poirier’s kicks and punches. But the damage was done nonetheless.
In the final streak, Poirier landed a hard kick to McGregor’s right calf that clearly injured him. Poirier put McGregor against the cage and let go with a hard combination that rocked McGregor – then another, culminating with a nice right hand that dropped McGregor.
McGregor admitted to being injured by Poirier’s calf kicks, saying he was “seriously compromised” by them.
“It’s hard to take. The highs and lows of this game,” he said at his post-fight press conference. “My leg is completely dead. Even though I felt like I was checking them, it was just digging into the muscle in the front of the leg and it was severely compromised.”
McGregor added, “I didn’t adjust and that’s it. Dustin fair play, I’m very happy for him.”
Poirier beat McGregor 48-29 in important strikes, 18 of which were leg strikes, according to UFC statistics.
Poirier has seven UFC light knockouts, tied for the most in division history with Edson Barboza and Melvin Guillard.
It was McGregor’s first fight since Cerrone’s 40-second knockout at UFC 246 in January 2020 and his first time at lightweight since a 2018 loss to Nurmagomedov. McGregor has only fought in the UFC three times since 2016, but has vowed to stay active this year, saying this week he wants to fight seven times in the next 18 months.
When asked about the next step for him, McGregor said he believes there are several good encounters. He said he hopes for a third fight with Poirier.
“I’ll take a different approach to the trilogy with Dustin,” McGregor said. “Those leg kicks should not be disturbed. The calf kick, the low calf kick, I hadn’t been through that.”
White said he believed Saturday’s loss would make McGregor “hungrier.”
“There are two ways to do this: more hungry or ‘I’m done’,” White said.
UFC 257 took place in front of a limited number of fans at Etihad Arena with COVID-19 protocols in place. It was the UFC’s first pay-per-view event with fans provided with tickets since last March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Former interim UFC lightweight champion Poirier (27-6, 1 NC) has only one loss in his last nine fights – against Nurmagomedov. The Louisiana native, who trains from America’s Top Team in Florida, had just picked up a unanimous decision victory over Dan Hooker in June. Poirier, 32, is 11-2 (1 NC) since that loss to McGregor in 2014 and has always been a contender for lightweight.
McGregor (22-5) had won three of his last four games, with the only loss occurring during that time against Nurmagomedov in a title fight. The Irish native was the first simultaneous two-time champion in UFC history, winning the lightweight belt while also being featherweight champion against Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 in November 2016. McGregor, 32 , is the biggest silver producer in UFC history, and he even transcended MMA in 2017, stepping up to boxing in a match against Floyd Mayweather. McGregor is 10-2 in UFC fights.
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