By Colin Murphy

February 12, 2021

On Saturday the 23rd, Dustin Poirier avenged his loss to Conor Mcgregor from his 2016 UFC match. 

     The UFC lightweight contender shocked McGregor; beating him with a Technical Knockout after two minutes and 32 seconds of the second round. The event took place  Saturday night in the main event of UFC 257 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. 

     During the first round of this fight Conor and Poirier went back and forth. Some believed Conor was dominating, however, the points revealed this simply was not the case. McGregor had a very strong first round. He landed multiple left handed swings and one very strong right handed upper-cut. This shot snapped Poriers head back, and many thought this was when the fight was going to end. Shortly afterward, however ,Poirier took down McGregor. Nevertheless, McGregor found his way up with relative ease.

 In the second round, Poirier took over, easing his way into victory. Poirier first began to hurt Mcgregor with kicks to the right calf. With an upper hand on Mcgregor’s hurt leg, Poirier knew he’d be slower so he began combining punches. According to ESPN, the final blow was a “shovel right hand that dropped McGregor,” he then followed up on the ground and the referee stepped in to make the call. This call made this loss McGregor’s first KO or TKO of his 13 year career.  

     However, many high ranking UFC fighters believe that nobody should count out McGregor yet. Although it was a very tough loss, he has been out of the octagon for quite awhile and has been very inactive, his managers shared. Post fight McGregor shared that he is very confident in his abilities and believes that he will be back in the octagon and will win again. “I have to dust it off and come back and that’s what I’ll do.” He said in his post interview. 

     Those who believe McGregors days as a top contender are over are just false. Losses in MMA do not mean nearly as much as they would in another sport, such as boxing. Headed into the fight, McGregor had only fought for 40 seconds since 2018. Although he lost, Porier is one of the best fighters there is. He came into the octagon with a great game plan and won the fight completely fair. If Mcgregor does make his comeback and proceeds to win that fight, he will most likely become a top contender (fighter) again. After all, McGregor is only 32.