MCGREGOR BREAKS LEG IN CRUSHING DEFEAT TO POIRIER IN UFC 264

Sun 11 July 2021:

The Irishman, Conor McGregor 32, sustained a serious leg break to cast doubt on his future as he lost to lightweight rival Dustin Poirier via doctor’s stoppage in round one at UFC 264 in Las Vegas.

As a thrilling first five-minute frame drew to a close, both fighters were still trying to land as McGregor stumbled backwards, trapping his foot under himself and breaking his leg.

McGregor started aggressively by targeting Poirier with leg kicks, but the American quickly capitalised after seeming to hear McGregor’s leg crack during one exchange.

Medics were immediately called into the octagon and it was clear that McGregor could not continue, prompting referee Herb Dean to declare a stop to the bout on the instructions of the doctor.

GRAPHIC WARNING: Conor McGregor broke his leg in the 1st round of his fight against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 pic.twitter.com/wegOlpRaYO

— GG Gaming (@gggamingbet) July 11, 2021

The loss takes McGregor to 1-3 in the cage since 2016, when he left the UFC to take on Floyd Mayweather in boxing.

With the victory, Poirier has earned the chance to recapture the lightweight title he held on an interim basis in 2019 prior to a loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov.

“He fractured it in one of the checks at the beginning of the fight and he broke it on a punch, for sure … I felt something, he was kicking me hard,” Poirier said in a post-fight interview.

Interviewed in the octagon with his leg in a cast, McGregor raged about his misfortune.

blob:https://www.news.com.au/8110818d-99d4-46e0-855d-385d66d92280

“I was boxing the head off him, kicking the leg off him, (he was doing) the usual, diving to close the distance. This is not over – if I have to take this outside with him, it’s on outside,” he roared.

With McGregor having won at featherweight in 2014 and Poirier extracting revenge at lightweight in Abu Dhabi in January, the run-up to the third fight was punctuated by bad blood between the pair, in marked contrast to a face-off earlier this year where the pair paid each other compliments.

Though American Poirier was fighting on home turf, his entrance to “The Boss” by James Brown was greeted with boos from the sizeable portion of the crowd that was there to support McGregor, and there was no friendly touch of gloves before the fight began.

After McGregor latest Vegas loss and leg break, UFC president Dana White said McGregor would have surgery in a Las Vegas hospital on Sunday morning and there would be fights on the table for him when he is fit again.

Given the enormous wealth he has already amassed and his recent run of poor results, the question is whether or not he will want them.

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