Dustin Poirier beat Conor McGregor for the second time in six months when McGregor badly injured his left leg 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.
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.
“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.”
McGregor was furious about the circumstances of his loss before he was carried from the cage. He also continued his lengthy campaign of verbal abuse against Poirier and his wife on the way out.
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