“I see us executing and getting a KO victory in the third round.”
Dustin Poirier’s boxing coach Dyah Davis believes ‘The Diamond’s’ upcoming trilogy bout with Conor McGregor will play almost identically to their Jan. 2021 rematch, with the ex-boxer predicting another highlight reel KO victory against the Irishman, this time in the third round.
Davis, who trains Poirier at American Top Team’s Coconut Creek facility in Fla., hinted that ‘The Diamond’ could utilize the same calf kicks he used at UFC 257 to wear ‘The Notorious’ down before setting up the KO.
“I take this approach as if a lumberjack, we’re in a forest,” Davis told MMA Junkie in a recent interview. “The idea is to chop the tree down from the bottom and that’s exactly what we did. It’s a fight. So we look for any weaknesses that we could take advantage of and that was one of them. So we capitalized and we moved on from there and ended up finishing him with strikes.”
He continued, “I think it’ll play out similar to the second fight, maybe a little bit longer. I see us executing and getting a KO victory in the third round.”
As for why he’s so confident in Poirier, Davis knows his star student is training hard and putting in the work every day whereas he’s not sure he can say the same about McGregor, whose commitment to the sport remains a mystery.
“Dustin is active, I think that definitely plays to his favor,” he said. “Conor was out of the game two, three years so ring rust can possibly play a factor in it, but listen, you’re a fighter. Conor is a fighter first and his job as a fighter is to be in the gym on a constant basis. You should be training, you should be sharpening your tools and that’s what Dustin does. Even if he doesn’t have a fight scheduled, he’s still in the gym, he’s still training, he’s still doing what he’s supposed to do. He’s still being responsible as a fighter.”
With Poirier and McGregor both tied one-a-piece, this trilogy is for all the marbles. The highly anticipated lightweight matchup will headline next month’s UFC 264 pay-per-view on July 10 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.