Conor McGregor’s comeback, one that cost fans a boatload of money, lasted all of 69 seconds.
That’s because “Notorious” opened his UFC 329 main event with a well-practiced flying kick, which failed miserably, then inexplicably tried it again. Instead of inflicting any damage on Max Holloway, the 38-year-old McGregor blew out his knee, forcing referee Mike Beltran to call a stop to the action.
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Not long after the dust settled and the smoke cleared in Las Vegas, the Internet went wild with conspiracy theories, ranging from a pre-existing injury to McGregor flat-out throwing the fight. Neither scenario sits well with longtime rival Dustin Poirier, who believes the Irishman simply made a bad decision.
“I think adrenaline, excitement for finally coming back after five years, I don’t know what he was thinking to open the fight,” Poirier told Teddy Atlas. “I don’t know whose gameplan this was to open the fight with the flying sidekick or a roundhouse kick, whatever he threw, when you’re dry. It’s just crazy to me the way the fight started and ended. If he knew he was injured, and he just said, ‘It’s either me or him, the first minute, somebody’s gonna fall, and just go out there and get in his face, and throw into one of us goes down,’ wouldn’t you do it with punches? Why would you do it with an injured weapon?”
The now-retired Poirier had three fights with McGregor, losing at UFC 178 as a featherweight before rematching “Notorious” and knocking him out at lightweight in their UFC 257 headliner. A trilogy was expected to settle their score once and for all, but McGregor broke his leg in the UFC 264 main event, which led to a five-year absence.
“If you wanted to go down that path. I just don’t … I’ve had a lot of time with Conor over the past 12 years, and I just don’t think he’s a quitter like that,” Poirier explained. “That’s tough for me. I don’t know if that’s possible with him. If he knew, if he wanted a built-in excuse, a storyline that’s already wrote itself, and he can blame it on his leg, do something dumb … I know if he’s that type of guy. I’ll say a lot of bad stuff about him, but a quitter, I’m not sure. He’s a real competitor and wants to win, 100 percent. And I doubt he needed the money. It’s not like he said, ‘Well, I have to go through with this and get into this cage with this injury, because I need the money, this is the only way.’ The guy’s got money. It wasn’t like he was showing up for a paycheck. I really don’t understand what went on.”
Poirier and McGregor are still at odds despite their time together inside the cage. Most recently, “Notorious” used Poirier’s public drunkenness to lecture “The Diamond” on karma, which in retrospect, is somewhat hilarious. Actually, it was hilarious at the time, as well, but that’s a different conversation for a different post.
“Did they pull the wool over our eyes with the lead-up to this fight? Because that was the whole storyline coming into this fight, Conor’s living the fight life again,” Poirier said. “He’s dedicated, living in the gym. He’s back to his old ways. That was the whole storyline to get us to believe that this was the real Conor coming back. You don’t open a fight with a flying kick as part of a gameplan. I think that was just heat of the moment, adrenaline, nerves. He’s been away five years and let’s be honest, five years is a long time in fighting. He’s not the same Conor, who might have been able to pull this off in previous fights five years ago, where you could jump sideways and land at a weird angle and your knees could take that kind of blow. You were in your twenties or early thirties. He’s almost 40 years old. He’s been out for five years. I think it was nerves, adrenaline, it was all that. And I think that got the best of him, and he just made a bad mistake, throwing that kick in the heat of the moment, going off of instinct, rather than gameplan. But doing the worst thing for your legs, if you knew you were injured, it’s just a crazy scenario. I don’t know if we’re ever going to know the truth to this. But something’s weird about it.”
McGregor (22-7) is threatening to “go again” after rehabbing his injured knee.
