Conor McGregor has only ever been knocked out once in his MMA career. Dustin Poirier was the man to do it, and if his coach is to be believed, he fully intends to do it again:
“I think it’ll play out similar to the second fight, maybe a little bit longer. I see us executing and getting a KO victory in the third round.”
Poirier’s Boxing Coach has a BRUTAL prediction for UFC 264…
The last bout between McGregor and Poirier was characterised by Dustin’s use of brutal leg kicks. His kickboxing through the first round immobilised McGregor, whose movement ordinarily is swift and agile. This drained Conor of much of his power, slowing him down, and enabling Poirier to execute a flurry of strikes to McGregor’s head, ending in the Irishman’s first ever loss via knockout.
This, says Poirier’s boxing coach Dyah Davis, was all part of the plan:
“The idea is to chop the tree down from the bottom and that’s exactly what we did. It’s a fight. So we look for any weaknesses that we could take advantage of and that was one of them. So we capitalized and we moved on from there and ended up finishing him with strikes.”
Poirier, training hard alongside his American Top Teammates in Florida, has been far more active in MMA than his opponent. Conor has only fought in the UFC three times in the past four years, with only one of those bouts resulting in a victory for the Irishman. Many are doubting McGregor’s commitment to the sport that made him famous. Davis joins the chorus of critics:
“Conor is a fighter first and his job as a fighter is to be in the gym on a constant basis. You should be training, you should be sharpening your tools and that’s what Dustin does. Even if he doesn’t have a fight scheduled, he’s still in the gym, he’s still training, he’s still doing what he’s supposed to do.”
McGregor, in a post-fight interview, discussed the success of Poirier’s calf kicks and the effect of his own inactivity on the outcome of the fight. Whether he will alter his plan and emerge the focused, dominant fighter he once was will only be revealed on July 10.
What are your predictions for the upcoming bout? Will Conor return to the lofty heights he once scaled and reclaim a UFC title, or has the Irishman’s day been and gone? Will Dustin Poirier successfully win the trilogy and go on to fight Oliveira for the Lightweight title? Let us know in the comments.
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