UFC president isn’t ready to end the Dustin Poirier-Conor McGregor chapter just yet.
After weeks of a heated build-up, UFC 264 featured a bit of an anti-climactic end. Conor McGregor injured his leg in the first round of his headliner fight against Dustin Poirier, causing a second straight TKO loss.
It obviously wasn’t the ending that everyone wanted. While it did end in a stoppage, some think there was no definitive closure to a rivalry that spanned over the last seven years. And that’s exactly how Dana White sees it.
As he said during the post-fight presser, the UFC president is already expecting a part four between the two elite 155-pounders.
“The fight didn’t get finished. You can’t have a fight finish that way,” White told reporters. “We’ll see how this whole thing plays out. Who knows how long Conor’s out? Poirier will do his thing until Conor’s ready.
“The (fourth fight) is there. You’ve got the rematch with (Poirier) like you got the (third fight) with Diaz. It’s always gonna be there. I don’t know what the landscape’s gonna look like, when he’s ready or how long it’s gonna be. So to say definitively, I can’t right here, right now. But, you always have that rematch.”
Poirier apparently feels the same way, although he did mention that McGregor will probably need a win first.
“We are gonna fight again, whether it’s in the Octagon or on the sidewalk,” he said during his post-fight scrum. “You don’t say the stuff he said.
“He was saying he was gonna kill me. You don’t say stuff like that. That he was gonna murder me. You don’t say stuff like that.”
White also said that McGregor is due for surgery on Sunday morning for a possibly broken shinbone. He also confirmed that Poirier is next in line to face Charles Oliveira for the undisputed lightweight strap.