The biggest star in the MMA is officially back. Tonight, Dana White announced at the UFC Vegas 12 post-fight press conference that Conor McGregor (22-4) and Dustin Poirier (26-6, 1 NC) will officially be fighting in January.
White said that the fight is a, “Done deal.” The UFC‘s biggest star will be returning after another 12 month layoff. McGregor returned last January and defeated Donald Cerrone in under a minute at UFC 246. McGregor said in the post-fight interview he was back and wanted to be active.
However, the pandemic really threw off everything. McGregor was desperate to get back into the cage, however, the UFC wanted to wait for fans to be back in the stands. A frustrated McGregor decided to retire from the sport due to the lack of fights.
However, nobody really believed that he was retired. Dustin Poirier has had his own interesting year with the UFC. Poirier fought and defeated Dan Hooker back in June. After that, the UFC looked like they were going to book Poirier against Tony Ferguson.
However, that fight never came together due to financial disagreements between Poirier and the UFC. With Poirier set to take on McGregor, we can expect the payday to be much higher for the diamond in this one.
Analyzing the UFC lightweight contest
The two men will be fighting for the second time. The first fight came back at UFC 176 when both were still competing in the featherweight division. The two had a very heated buildup to their first contest inside the octagon.
McGregor was able to win that fight by first round knockout. Since then, McGregor blew up into the biggest star the UFC has ever seen. He became a two-division world champion and even got the chance to make close to nine figures in a boxing match with Floyd Mayweather.
Poirier moved up to lightweight and became one of the best in the world. He even became the UFC‘s interim lightweight champion last year. This fight is going to be so interesting because they have both grown so much since their first contest. It’ll be another smash PPV for the UFC with their cash king back.