On Saturday night, Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier will renew acquaintances when they meet for the third time at the at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The trilogy battle will headline UFC 264 that will be distributed by ESPN+.
Their rematch took place in January at a time when McGregor’s team was negotiating a fight in the squared circle against eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao.
In an interview Thursday with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, McGregor admitted that he wasn’t fully focused on the task at hand. He wound end losing via second round knockout to Poirier.
“I pitied the man. I was looking past him. I had a Manny Pacquiao camp in place,” McGregor stated.
This time around he insists that he is fully locked in on his rival and doesn’t expect the fight to go the distance.
“I’m coming to kill the man. I’m coming in with vicious intent here. Mortar shots. What else can I say? That’s the way it is. I’m looking to take this man out cold,” McGregor said.
McGregor won their first fight in 2014 by 1st round knockout.
He also told Smith that he believes he will have a rematch against Mayweather “at some stage down the line” but that he is now fully concentrating on MMA and that boxing is “not even on the radar at the minute.”
In 2017, McGregor and Floyd Mayweather participated in one of the highest grossing pay-per-events of all time with the buys totaling more than 4.3 million.
Mayweather returned to the ring in an exhibition bout last month against Youtube star/influencer Logan Paul. After the fight he said that he would never fight in a real boxing match again and likely wouldn’t participate in anymore exhibition bouts either.
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