Dustin Poirier avenged his loss to Conor McGregor and picked up by far the biggest win of his career.
The perennial UFC lightweight contender shocked McGregor, beating him via TKO after swarming him with punches at 2:32 of the second round Saturday night in the main event of UFC 257 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Poirier first hurt McGregor on the right leg with kicks to the calf. With McGregor’s leg compromised, Poirier ripped off a series of hard-punching combinations. The closing blow was a shovel right hand that dropped McGregor. Poirier followed on the ground, and referee Herb Dean stepped in to call it, marking the first KO or TKO loss of McGregor’s 13-year career.
“We’re 1-1,” said Poirier, who entered the fight as a plus-275 underdog. “Maybe we have to do it again.”
Current lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov has made it clear he intends to retire, but whether or not he relinquishes the belt, Poirier has now put himself in the driver’s seat for a title shot.
“I think this is a title fight,” Poirier said. “I’m the champion.”
UFC president Dana White said at his postfight news conference that he thinks Poirier will fight Michael Chandler for the lightweight title next, adding that a recent conversation with Nurmagomedov about his UFC future “didn’t sound too positive.”
“He said to me, ‘Dana be honest with yourself. I’m so many levels above these guys, I beat these guys,'” White said of his talk with Nurmagomedov. ” I don’t know. But it doesn’t sound very positive. We’ll see.
White added, “I’m gonna talk to Khabib and see if he wants to defend that title. And if he doesn’t, I won’t push it anymore.”
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ESPN had Poirier ranked No. 3 and McGregor No. 10 in the world at 155 pounds. McGregor and Poirier fought before, with McGregor winning a featherweight fight by first-round TKO at UFC 178 in 2014.
“That low calf kick was very good,” McGregor said. “That leg was dead, man. … Dustin is some fighter.
“I have to dust it off and come back. And that’s what I will do.”
McGregor had a strong first round. He landed several hard left hands and a nice shovel right hook that snapped Poirier’s head back. Poirier took McGregor down, but McGregor got back up with relative ease.
The two fought in the clinch, with McGregor landing some hard shoulder strikes, like the ones he hurt Cerrone with. Poirier lost the round, but he did land hard kicks to the calf, which came into play later.
In the second round, McGregor landed hard combos but was having a hard time checking Poirier’s calf kick. McGregor started catching Poirier’s kicks and landing punches. But the damage was being done nonetheless.
In the finishing sequence, Poirier landed a hard kick to McGregor’s right calf that clearly hurt him. Poirier got McGregor against the cage and let loose with a hard combination that rocked McGregor. And then another, culminating with a beautiful right hand that dropped McGregor.
Poirier outlanded McGregor 48-29 in significant strikes, with 18 of those being leg strikes, per UFC Stats. He has seven UFC lightweight knockouts, tied for the most in division history with Edson Barboza and Melvin Guillard.
It was McGregor’s first fight since a 40-second knockout over Donald Cerrone at UFC 246 in January 2020 and his first time at lightweight since a 2018 loss to Nurmagomedov. McGregor has fought in the UFC just three times since 2016 but has vowed to stay active this year, saying this week that he wanted to fight seven times in the next 18 months.
White said he thinks Saturday’s defeat will make McGregor “hungrier.”
“There’s two ways this goes: hungrier or ‘I’m done,'” White said.
UFC 257 took place in front of a limited amount of fans at Etihad Arena with COVID-19 protocols in place. It was the first UFC pay-per-view event with ticketed fans since last March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Poirier (27-6, 1 NC), the former UFC interim lightweight champion, has just one loss in his past nine fights — to Nurmagomedov. The Louisiana native, who trains out of American Top Team in Florida, was coming off a unanimous-decision win over Dan Hooker last June. Poirier, 32, is 11-2 (1 NC) since that 2014 loss to McGregor and has been a perennial contender at lightweight.
McGregor (22-5) had won three of his past four coming in, with the only loss coming during that span to Nurmagomedov in a title bout. The Ireland native was the first concurrent double champion in UFC history, winning the lightweight belt while being featherweight champion against Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 in November 2016. McGregor, 32, is the most biggest moneymaker in UFC history and even transcended MMA in 2017, crossing over to boxing in a match against Floyd Mayweather. McGregor is 10-2 in UFC fights.