Joe Rogan says it’s clear Conor McGregor’s leg was injured before UFC 264.
The Irishman squared off against Dustin Poirier for the third time on July 10.
After enduring a tough first round, McGregor suffered a nasty leg break with just a few seconds left on the clock. The former dual-weight champion survived to see the end of the first frame before the fight was waved off between rounds.
Since the fight, McGregor has claimed that his leg was compromised heading into UFC 264. The 33-year-old says he was suffering from stress fractures in his shin. This claim has been met with skepticism by fans, pundits, and even doctors.
During a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, the UFC commentator explained why he buys McGregor’s pre-existing injury excuse.
“Conor apparently went into that fight with a cracked shin already,” Rogan said. “He had gotten a stress fracture in his shin and got it scanned. There’s even photographs of the scans and he was putting pads on it.
“I think what he was trying to do was, he was trying to spar during camp with no shin pad and instep pads. That’s what I’ve been told. I don’t know if it’s true. Whenever anything happens, you’ll get a bunch of text messages from guys like, ‘I know a guy from Conor’s camp, he says Conor was sparring with no shin pads.’ I don’t know if that’s true. That’s a rare thing for somebody to spar (without any shinpads). He was so hell-bent on destroying Dustin Poirier, he might’ve don’t something like that and then it wound up costing him.
“You can see his leg, there’s clearly something wrong with it going in,” Rogan added. “Your leg doesn’t just break like that. Like, when you see Chris Weidman’s leg break it’s very clear. He throws it. It catches right where Uriah Hall’s shin meets the bottom of the knee, it’s a very rigid spot. Something has to give out and it was the shin – that makes sense. The Conor one didn’t really make sense. It didn’t make sense the way it broke. There was something wrong with it I would imagine already.”
Do you agree with Joe Rogan? Was Conor McGregor clearly injured before UFC 264?