After a respectful build to their January rematch, Conor McGregor has resorted to his classic trash talk game ahead of Saturday's rubber match with Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 in Las Vegas. As Poirier has claimed McGregor's return to his old antics is a matter of insecurity after Poirier scored a knockout win at UFC 257, McGregor's intensity has ratcheted up.
McGregor tweeted on June 18 that the first one to shoot for a takedown would be a "dusty bitch." Poirier responded with his own shots in an ESPN interview.
"Isn't he the one who's always preaching about the flow, the full martial arts, no holds barred, no rules, the ultimate fighting, when he's talking about boxing and stuff, right?" Poirier said earlier this month. "How about the first one to get taken down is dusty bitch? This is mixed martial arts. Put it all together. It reeks of insecurity to me."
McGregor has now responded, saying that Poirier's talk would lead to a bad result this time around.
"He talks some amount lately," McGregor said on Instagram Live. "He's going to pay for that, that's for sure. It's not going to be nice."
Before their first meeting in 2014, Poirier was overwhelmed by McGregor's pre-fight mind games and then overwhelmed further inside the Octagon when McGregor scored a first-round TKO. Poirier admitted to "Morning Kombat" ahead of the rematch that he'd been "a deer in the headlights" before the first meeting.
He was clearly not overwhelmed in the rematch, dealing with a strong early push from McGregor before using leg kicks and slick boxing to set up the knockout, seemingly leading McGregor to drift his focus back to the mind games that broke Poirier the first time around.
