The UFC 264 main event ended with a big win for Dustin Poirier, though the circumstances will likely leave many unsatisfied with the outcome.
No one more so than the losing fighter, Conor McGregor.
Referee Herb Dean called a stoppage to the contest after McGregor was unable to continue at the end of round one due to a leg injury. The exact nature of McGregor’s injury is not yet known, but replays showed that his leg appeared to buckle around the ankle area during an exchange, leaving the former two-division champion unable to stand on his own power.
McGregor was interviewed immediately afterwards and he was not interested in giving Poirier any credit for how their trilogy bout ended.
“I was boxing the bleeding head off of him, kicking the bleeding leg off…” McGregor said. “This is not over. If I have to take this outside with him, it’s on outside. I don’t give a bollocks.”
It was Poirier who was interviewed first and he didn’t shy away from taking a few verbal shots at McGregor. In the buildup to their trilogy bout, McGregor directed several personal insults at Poirier and his wife, Jolie.
Poirier also gave his take on the injury, explaining that he thought it might have been fractured early in the fight when he checked one of McGregor’s kicks. McGregor disagreed.
“There was no check,” McGregor said. “There was not one of them checked.”
As McGregor sat on the canvas being interviewed by commentator Joe Rogan, he was visibly frustrated and at times unintelligible. He hurled more insults at Poirier and his wife as they exited the octagon.
Asked about how he believed the injury happened, McGregor struggled to answer.
“Just the thing had separated, I landed on the wonky leg like Anderson Silva, something similar to that, it’s a f*cking madhouse business,” McGregor said.
Following his interview, McGregor remained defiant as he was taken away from the cage on a stretcher.