Conor McGregor and long-time rival Dustin Poirier narrowly avoid backstage run-in
Poirier believes he and McGregor would have fought ‘if we’d made eye contact’
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Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier narrowly avoided a ‘bad’ run-in at a Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) event last weekend.
McGregor and Poirier have a decade of history in the UFC, with the Irishman knocking out Poirier in 2014 before the American returned the favour in January 2021. Six months after their second fight, they rounded out their trilogy as McGregor suffered a broken leg in round one.
While the pair were cordial before and after their second clash, McGregor greatly antagonised Poirier in the build-up to their first fight and the weeks around their final meeting. While sitting in the Octagon with a broken leg in July 2021, McGregor famously launched a verbal tirade at Poirier’s wife Jolie.
And an unsanctioned fourth fight could have come to pass on Saturday (12 October), as the lightweights came dangerously close to seeing each other at a BKFC event in Spain.
“We were walking over to [our] booth, and Conor was behind me apparently,” Poirier told Uncrowned on Tuesday (15 October).
“My agent was walking behind me, he grabs my shoulders and says: ‘Hey, go this way: to the right, to the right.’ Then, once we get clear of everybody, he’s like: ‘Dude, we almost had a big problem.’
“You ever watch Family Guy? You know when Peter and the chicken run into each other [and always fight]? That’s what would have happened.
“Yeah, for sure, [because of what he said about my family] and just everything we have over the past however many years since our first fight.
“Dude, for sure, if we’d have made eye contact... That’s what I’m talking about: if our eyes would have met, it’d have been bad probably.”
A clip on social media showed an interviewer mentioning Poirier’s presence to McGregor, during Saturday’s event, saying: “You see how Dustin went the other way? He was right behind me.” A surprised McGregor replied: “What? Oh, he’s here?? No way! Well, there it is...”
McGregor, 36, has not fought since his third bout with Poirier, 35.
Poirier, meanwhile, has fought five times since. The “Diamond” has suffered a knockout loss to Justin Gaethje, whom he previously stopped, and submission defeats by Charles Oliveira and Islam Makhachev – with the latter losses taking place in title fights. In that run of fights, however, Poirier did knock out Benoit Saint-Denis and submit Michael Chandler.
After Poirier’s loss to Makhachev in June, it was expected that he could retire, but the American has insisted he will fight again.
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