Tough break; Poirier beats McGregor
New Mexico fighters Condit, Rivera each lose at UFC 264
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Dustin Poirier beat Conor McGregor for the second time in six months when McGregor badly injured his left ankle in the closing seconds of the first round at UFC 264 on Saturday night.
The fight was stopped after the first-round bell when McGregor (22-6) was unable to continue. The biggest star in mixed martial arts never got up after falling to the canvas following a final-minute blow by Poirier (28-6), who will get the UFC’s next lightweight title shot.
Poirier said he thought McGregor’s leg broke when he checked one of McGregor’s kicks earlier in the fight.
“I felt something, for sure,” Poirier said. “He fractured it on one of the kicks at the beginning of the fight, and then he broke it.”
Poirier was largely in control of the opening round, parrying McGregor’s kicks and landing several strikes before getting control over McGregor on the ground. After a long stretch of punches and elbows on the prone McGregor, Poirier knocked him down one last time — and McGregor’s ankle bent gruesomely as he fell.
McGregor was furious about the circumstances of his loss before he was carried from the cage.
“This is not over!” he shouted. McGregor dropped to 1-3 in the cage since 2016, when he abdicated his UFC title reigns and accepted a wildly lucrative boxing match with Floyd Mayweather. McGregor has been unable to recapture his fearsome MMA form,
losing decisively to Khabib Nurmagomedov and twice to Poirier while beating only an over-the-hill Donald Cerrone.
Poirier stopped McGregor in the second round when they met in Abu Dhabi last January, avenging his first-round knockout loss to McGregor in 2014. Poirier’s clear superiority in the fighters’ second bout made a third showdown seem questionable just six months later, but McGregor demanded the chance to fix his mistakes and Poirier accepted the massive paycheck.
T-Mobile Arena was packed with a sellout UFC crowd for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, and President Dana White said the gate revenue was around $16.5 million, ranking among the highest in UFC history. The celebrity crowd included Dave Chappelle, Mel Gibson, Miles Teller, Jared Leto, Steve Aoki, Jackass’ Steve-O, Baker Mayfield and NFL owners Robert Kraft and Mark Davis.
Donald Trump arrived for the final three fights and got a brief, loud burst of cheers and boos.
NEW MEXICO’S OWN:
It was a disappointing night for the New Mexico contingent.
Albuquerque welterweight Carlos Condit lost by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27) to Max Griffin of Sacramento, California. Condit is 32-14, Griffin 18-8.
Santa Fe flyweight Jerome Rivera lost by firstround submission (standing guillotine choke) to Kazakhstan’s Zhalgas Zhumagulov. Rivera is 10-6 but is 0-4 in UFC competition. Zhumagulov is 14-5.
OTHER FIGHTS: Gilbert Burns won a unanimous decision over Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson in the co-main event . ...
Australian heavyweight Tai Tuivasa celebrated his violent first-round knockout of former NFL player Greg Hardy by climbing onto the octagon fence and doing a shoey — drinking booze from a shoe in proper Aussie celebratory style. Hardy, who lost his NFL career in 2015 after being convicted of domestic violence, has lost two straight fights after a 7-2 start to his MMA career.