Esther Lin
Dana White says verbal agreements are in place.
Talks about a rematch between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier have been heating up, with the Irishman recently saying he accepts the January 23 date. Dana White has since confirmed that both men are interested in the match up, and verbal agreements are in place.
“(Conor) said, ‘yes’ and Dustin said, ‘yes,’ so now it’s a matter of getting contracts signed,” White told the assembled media in Abu Dhabi.
White nixed McGregor’s idea to host the fight at the Dallas Cowboy’s AT&T Stadium in Texas though.
“Listen, we’ve had a very good relationship with Jerry Jones for a long time and talked about Dallas, Texas, stadium forever,” he said. “I’m not going into any arena where we’re going to fill a quarter of the arena or half of the arena or any of that stuff, so when crowds are ready to come back we’ll do crowds again.”
Both McGregor and Poirier have had issues negotiating with the UFC just recently, so “a matter of getting contracts signed” isn’t as assuring as it normally would be. They both seem to really want the fight though, so hopefully they’re happy with all the other details and purse figures and we can get this highly anticipated rematch finalized.
Poirier and McGregor originally fought back in 2014 as featherweights, with the Irishman picking up a first round TKO win. Both eventually moved up in weight, with Poirier going 10-2 with 1 no contest as a lightweight, and McGregor going 3-2 at both 155 and 170 lbs.
Their January 23 rematch would mark over a year since McGregor’s last bout against Donald Cerrone. Poirier on the other hand, had an entertaining decision win over Dan Hooker last June.