Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC
If Conor McGregor rematches Dustin Poirier, it’ll be at lightweight.
Just because Conor McGregor’s last fight was a welterweight bout doesn’t mean he gets to stay there for the Dustin Poirier rematch.
Despite John Kavanagh’s attempts on social media to make Conor McGregor’s rematch with Dustin Poirier seem like it’ll be at 170 lbs, Dana White isn’t interested. The UFC president addressed this topic when interviewed by BT Sport on Wednesday.
“It’s 155 pounds,” White confirmed when speaking to BT Sport. “I’m not putting on a freaking multi-million dollar fight at a catch weight that means nothing. That fight means nothing at 170. Neither one of those two are ranked at 170 pounds and it doesn’t do anything in the [155] pound division if either one of them win cause they’re fighting at 170. It literally makes no sense.
“There are plenty of organizations that put on fights that make no sense. You can go and watch those kinds of fights every weekend. That’s not what we do here.”
McGregor vs. Poirier would almost certainly determine who gets the winner between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Justin Gaethje at UFC 254. At least with McGregor vs. Donald Cerrone, Donald had quite a few fights at welterweight, whereas Poirier has never competed in the division. Of course, Dana did say a title shot would be in store for Conor if he did beat Cerrone, but he evidently needs to win again.
As much as it’d be great to see less weight cutting in the sport, it wouldn’t make much sense for Conor-Poirier 2 to be “a lightweight fight where they’re not cutting to lightweight” without applying that logic to any other fight of this magnitude.
Assuming contracts eventually get signed, the targeted date for this showdown would be January 23rd in the UFC’s first pay-per-view of 2021.