Conor McGregor sat and seethed with his back on the cage, a temporary cast around his left shin and foot. The biggest star in mixed martial arts was convinced he had just been robbed of revenge on Dustin Poirier by a broken leg.
“I was boxing the bleedin’ head off him, kicking the bleedin’ leg off him,” McGregor shouted. “This is not over! If we have to take this outside for him, we’ll take it outside.”
McGregor’s animosity toward Poirier hasn’t cooled, but this fight trilogy ended — for now, at least — with another victory for his more mild-mannered enemy.
Poirier beat McGregor for the second time in six months when McGregor was unable to continue after the first round at Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 264 on Saturday night.
McGregor (22-6) fell to the canvas and never got up after a punch by Poirier (28-6), who will get the UFC’s next lightweight title shot. McGregor’s leg and ankle buckled when he stepped back from the blow, and Poirier finished the round raining blows down on the former two-division UFC champion.
Dustin Poirier, top, punches Conor McGregor during a UFC 264 lightweight mixed martial arts bout, Las Vegas, US, July 10. — AP
“Just the thing had separated, and I bleedin’ landed on the wonky leg like Anderson Silva that one time, something similar to that,” McGregor said, referring to longtime middleweight champ Silva’s infamously gruesome broken leg against Chris Weidman. “It’s a mad business.”
UFC President Dana White said that he was told McGregor broke his shin near the ankle. McGregor will have surgery on Sunday morning.
Poirier said that he thought McGregor’s leg broke when he checked one of McGregor’s kicks earlier in the fight. McGregor disagreed, saying there was “not one check”.
