Having hit the peak of his career back in January, Dustin Poirier has now reached new heights once again after taking down Conor McGregor for the second time this calendar year.
Poirier lost the first ever encounter between him and McGregor back in 2014, but got his revenge just under six months ago following a ruthless TKO victory in Abu Dhabi.
While the American may have thought he’d reached the apex of his fighting career, he’s just gone and done it again in Las Vegas.
The win sees Poirier improve his professional fighting record to 28-6 as McGregor has now lost twice to the same fighter for the first time in his career.
It’s been a fairytale year for Poirier thus far, and it only seems to be getting better and better. This victory all but confirms that The Diamond will face Charles Oliveira for the UFC lightweight championship.
Back in April 2019, Poirier won his first UFC title (interim) after a unanimous decision win over Max Holloway, but just five months later, he lost to Khabib Nurmagomedov, who became the new unified UFC lightweight championship holder.
With Khabib now out of the picture, Poirier is in the form of his life and a title fight could not have come at a more opportune moment for the American.
There was evidently so much hype during the build up to this bout, but despite all of that, Poirier remained composed and focused.
He told Yahoo Sports before the fight: “The only thing that matters is what I can control, and that’s the preparation, my mindset going in, my body, how I’m feeling, just the things that come along with training camp.
“As long as I check all those boxes, I mean that’s all I can do, so I learned not to work myself up as much over things that don’t really matter.”
The wind is firmly in Poirier’s sail now, and we can imagine that preparations for his potential title fight are set to begin very soon.
Regarding McGregor, the defeat is the sixth of his career, as well as the first time the Irishman has lost more than once in a calendar year. With another Poirier loss to mull over, many will question what The Notorious’ next step in UFC will be and whether the McGregor of old will ever return.
With Poirier continuing to see his stock soar, the MMA world is nothing but excited for the continuation of the 32-year-old’s rise to the top of the UFC lightweight division.