Dustin Poirier came out on top in his very short but intense third fight against Conor McGregor at UFC 264 Saturday night.
The pair, who looked pretty evenly matched at the very beginning of the fight, had filled the run-up to their battle at Las Vegas’s T-Mobile Arena with plenty of trash talk, especially McGregor (it’s his trademark, at this point).
But this time it was Poirier who broke the 1-1 tie between the welterweights with an anticlimactic victory after McGregor appeared to break his ankle or part of his lower leg, forcing a doctor stoppage and TKO after just one round. You can watch the footage of the moment the injury happened below but be warned that it is disturbing.
Even as trainers were checking out his leg, a visibly angry and upset McGregor said, “This is not over!”
“I was boxing the bleeding head off him,” McGregor said to commentator Joe Rogan, “kicking the bleeding leg off (…) This is not over! If I have to take this outside with him, I’ll go outside.”
Near the end of the opening round, Poirier lit into the Notorious One with a combination. As McGregor tried to steady on one foot, his left leg gave out and he hit the mat, Poirier jumping on the opportunity and pummeling him as the round ended.
McGregor said, “There was no check!” as UFC commentator Joe Rogan told him that Poirier said a kick he’d delivered to the Irishman’s leg did the job.
Before Rogan could respond, McGregor began hurling insults at Poirier.
As for the winner, Dustin Poirier admitted he wished the victory had happened in a different way, but as far as he was concerned, “a win is a win.”
“I felt like I was control of the fight,” Poirier said, “and I feel like his leg is the result of a defensive move, me checking it, a kick.”
Though he won, Poirier went on to say at a post-fight press conference that McGregor pulled some illegal moves before all was said and done. “I let him up because he had three fingers in my glove,” Poirier said, “the cuff of the tape, so it’s a good grip (…) He’s pulling me down and kicking up at the same time. I’m not surprised that he does that kind of stuff.”
One past McGregor opponent who really enjoyed the fight: Floyd Mayweather.
“Money” Mayweather posted his betting ticket on the fight afterward, showing he’d placed a $50,000 straight bet on Poirier to win. He collected $85,714.30 and addressed Poirier in his Instagram caption, saying “thanks for getting me paid!”
Poirier’s overall attitude toward McGregor’s injury was “Sometimes these things happen.” As far as he was concerned, a win was a win, and nothing, including how it happened, could truly detract from his victory: “Nah, I beat the guy.”
Will there be a fourth trip to the Octagon for Poirier v. McGregor? No one is totally ruling it out. Dustin Poirier said, “We are going to fight again whether it’s in the octagon or on the sidewalk. You don’t say the stuff he said.”
Regarding another faceoff between the American and the Irishman, UFC president Dana White was cautious. He wouldn’t be definitive on anything but he did say, “you always have that rematch.”
Conor McGregor, in an Instagram post published early Sunday, was cryptic. Beneath a photo of him on a gurney with his leg in a splint, McGregor simply wrote, “You need people like me.”
The UFC 265 main card will feature an interim heavyweight championship match between Derrick Lewis and Ciryl Gane and a UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship bout between current champ Amanda Nunes and challenger. Julianna Peña.
UFC 265 is scheduled for August 7, 2021, at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.
