- Conor McGregor publicly accepted the offer from the UFC to meet Poirier.
- The Notorious was inactive since his win against Cowboy Cerrone in January this year.
- Poirier is allegedly ready to accept the fight, but nobody reached out to him about it right now.
McGregor is Back
One of the biggest showmen in sports, and arguably the biggest name in the UFC, Conor McGregor shook the MMA community by announcing that he accepts the offer to fight Dustin Poirier.
The UFC contacted McGregor offering him to meet Poirier on January 23, and the Irishman responded positively on his Twitter account.
“I accept, Jan 23rd is on!,” Conor wrote. “My goal is to see this fight take place in Cowboy stadium. Proper Style! Jerry Jones is a friend, and the stadium can hold our crowd. I will be ready for Texas, and Texas will be ready for my fans!”
The Notorious wanted the bout to occur in 2020, but the UFC had no resources to make something like that happen earlier than January. All available dates are already booked, and to mix something in order to squeeze in such a spectacle is probably not profitable for Dana White and the UFC.
“He wants to fight Dustin Poirier apparently, so we went to ESPN and got him his own date. He’s been offered Dustin Poirier on Jan. 23. It’s a yes or no answer,” said the UFC president.
Having in mind McGregor’s popularity, it is quite possible that UFC wants to exploit the event as much as possible, and to do so, they picked the date, which would give them time to make all the proper preparations.
The idea of having these two in the octagon was launched several weeks ago, once they talked about organizing a charity match. McGregor announced afterward that he plans to donate $500,00 to Poirier’s “The Good Fight Foundation.”
Khabib As the Mutual Target
Behind this fight is the common goal, and that is to avenge their recent respective defeats against Khabib Nurmagomedov. The Russian Eagle was the last person who defeated both McGregor and Poirier. Now, these two want to meet him again and get even.
Conor’s loss came at the UFC 229, in one of the most memorable fights of all time, that saw a massive brawl following its ending. After that, the Notorious wanted a rematch, but the idea was rejected, and he retired.
He announced the comeback at the start of the year, meeting Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, whom he smashed in only 40 seconds. Ever since, McGregor didn’t have a fight.
Poirier lost against Khabib in Abu Dhabi at the UFC 242. At the time, the American was the interim lightweight champion, but he couldn’t engender the Russian. He, too, made a pause following that defeat and came back this summer against Dan Hooker, whom he defeated following a unanimous decision.
These two guys already clashed once before, at the UFC 178. Back then, McGregor defeated Poirier with a first-round TKO, following some nasty punches, that brought the American down.
