BIG NEWS! Dustin Poirier just signed on the dotted line for his trilogy match with McGregor. Poirier declined the vacant title shot just to fight McGregor which just shows how massive a fight with McGregor do to a fighter’s career. Although he already feels that he is the “uncrowned champ” and is willing to let Chandler vs Oliveira happen.
Dustin Poirier has officially signed his contract to fight Conor McGregor on July 10, sources say. McGregor, as we know, was already in.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) April 2, 2021
Even though McGregor has tasted defeat a few times in the UFC, it was still shocking to see him get knocked out. The narrative when McGregor fights is that in the standup, he was close to being invincible and the best way would be to grapple him or bring him in deep waters but Poirier chose to chop the leg and land some accurate shots that turned the tide.
For Mcgregor’s side, he thinks that the ring rust was a huge factor in his defeat since his last fight prior was more than 12 months ago and the fight lasted only 40 seconds. It could have been a factor since he had a lot of issues outside of the Octagon that stopped him from competing. Once he got the momentum to fight, the pandemic happened that let him be inactive again. The featherweight Conor was one of the best runs in UFC history.
Mcgregor’s coach, John Kavanagh said that the biggest flaw was because of being too much boxing oriented. McGregor was super confident in his boxing that he focused only on that aspect which really showed in the fight. Even his stance changed a bit if we compare when they fought the first time. The boxing focus was probably because of the potential Pacquiao fight.
Although don’t discredit Poirier for executing a great game plan. Not being aggressive in the first round and being efficient with his energy. While McGregor was busy with other stuff, he climbed the lightweight division and even won the interim lightweight belt. He then loss to Khabib but has bounced back since then.
McGregor has shown to adjust after a loss. In his rematch with Nate Diaz, he showed to be more efficient with his shots and not look for the finish. McGregor then chose to chop the legs of Diaz in the early round to decrease the mobility. Either way, the fight will be fireworks as expected.
The trilogy will be an important fight as the winner will likely fight the winner of Oliveira vs Chandler. With Khabib retiring, who will be the next fighter to rule the division?
