The trilogy between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier has been officially announced and will take place in Las Vegas in July — Fightful has you covered on this story and all of the other news in the world of combat sports.
Dustin Poirier vs Conor McGregor 3 official for July
The trilogy between Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor has officially been announced by the UFC and will take place at UFC 264 in Las Vegas in front of a full house of fans.
See the official announcement by UFC president Dana White below.
The Vegas Strip and @TMobileArena are calling us home --
— UFC (@ufc) April 14, 2021
[ Pre-register for #UFC264 tickets on https://t.co/Hy57WJ5MQ3 ] pic.twitter.com/SkKmCzTgh4
Let’s settle it in the Octagon… #UFC264: -- @DustinPoirier vs ---- @TheNotoriousMMA 3
— UFC (@ufc) April 14, 2021
Pre-register for tickets: https://t.co/Hy57WJ5MQ3 pic.twitter.com/6VwrQbmqRx
This announcement of the trilogy comes relatively out of the blue as just days ago Conor McGregor posted on Twitter that his fight against Poirier was off because of Poirier revealing that McGregor and his team did not follow through with their $500,000 donation to Poirier's charity, The Good Fight Foundation.
It was also announced that the bout will take place in front of a sold-out crowd in Las Vegas at the T-Mobile Arena.
How do you think the trilogy will go down?
Will McGregor get his revenge or will Poirier win for the second time against McGregor?
Jimmy Flick explains his decision to leave the UFC
Jimmy Flick made the decision last week to walk away from the UFC and mixed martial arts as a whole. The decision took MMA fans by surprise as Flick only made his UFC debut just a few months ago in December 2020 where he got an extremely impressive flying triangle choke submission win over Cody Durden.
Flick has now explained his decision to walk away from MMA in an interview with Mike Heck of MMAFighting.com.
Flick said “I need to justify what I mean by that. The UFC never did me wrong. I love everything the UFC did for me. I love the goals that I got to get to the UFC, to the person it made me. But what I mean by that is there are no benefits of beating my body up no more being in the UFC. We have no 401k. We have no benefits. We have no fallback. Fighters are too stupid to unionize, and it’ll never happen because there are other fighters that will fight for that money. I love the money I got, but this is just to go show everybody that money doesn’t buy happiness."
Flick's decision is one that you can only respect, instead of being money motivated he has instead decided to make sure that his future with his family is fully protected.
John McCarthy says "you're not using your brain" to the referee who disqualified Eddie Alvarez in ONE
One of the best and most experienced MMA referees ever John McCarthy has come out and criticized Justin Brown who was the referee in the fight between Eddie Alvarez and Iuri Lapicus at ONE on TNT.
Brown showed Alvarez a red card, which in ONE is an automatic disqualification for punches to the back of the head.
Replay footage shows that Alvarez did not hit Lapicus on the back of the head but was instead of hitting him on the ear which is a perfectly legal shot in MMA.
John McCarthy who is one of MMA's best referees ever has come out and openly criticized Brown, who he did not specifically mention by name, for giving Alvarez a red card.
Speaking on his and Josh Thompson's podcast Weighing In, McCarthy said "you guys need to understand, you have a responsibility to a lot more than your understanding. You have a responsibility to those fighters. You have a responsibility to the promotion, and you have a responsibility to the fans of MMA and the sport of MMA that you’re going to do something that’s reasonable within what you can do."
McCarthy also went on to say "Just to take a championship fight and throw up a red card or to disqualify somebody, you’re not using your brain. You’re not being reasonable, and you’re not thinking of the full context of what you have.”
What did you make of the decision from Brown to disqualify Alvarez?
Giga Chikadze expresses his excitement about fighting Cub Swanson
Fast-rising featherweight contender Giga Chikadze is excited ahead of his upcoming fight against MMA veteran Cub Swanson at UFC Fight Night Reyes vs Prochazka.
In an interview with MMA Junkie, Chikadze spoke about how excited he is to have been given the opportunity to fight a veteran like Swanson.
Chikadze said "I got super excited. I couldn’t sleep all night. This is a guy that I’ve been watching for a long time since I started to really recognize some of the fighters in the UFC and especially in my weight division, and that guy’s been around for a long, long time. He was always like a top-five guy, fought a couple of times in a title fight. I’m just excited. I know he’s one that likes to fight. He’s gonna come forward, and that’s what brings the best in me.”
Even though Swanson has had several awesome stand-up wars against multiple opponents in the UFC, Chikadze believes that Swanson will come out and try and wrestle him in their fight.
Chikadze said "When it comes to highlights guys and highlights skillset, I don’t know if we need to talk about him in this case. Probably that’s gonna be me. But I’m definitely sure that he’s still gonna bring his grappling and wrestling skills because everyone thinks they need to take me down and they’re right about that because I feel I’m the best striker in the UFC, inside the MMA sport, so that’s what he needs to try."
How do you think the fight between Chikadze and Swanson will go?
Adriano Moraes will offer Demetrious Johnson a rematch if he wants one
At ONE on TNT, Adriano Moraes pulled off the biggest win of his MMA career so far when he knocked out who many believe to be the greatest MMA fighter of all time, Demetrious Johnson.
Moraes finished Johnson with a beautiful knee on the ground which is legal in ONE.
In an interview with Sherdog, Moraes spoke about the victory over Johnson and that he will gladly offer him a rematch if he wants one.
Check out the interview below.
Christian Lee says he will finish Timofey Nastyukhin to retain his ONE title
Tonight, Christian Lee will defend his ONE lightweight championship against Timofey Nastyukhin at ONE on TNT 2.
Lee is an expert finisher in his career having only gone to a decision once in his 17 professional bouts.
Lee is facing off against another expert finisher in Timofey Nastyukhin who many people remember as the man who knocked out Eddie Alvarez in his ONE debut.
Lee is extremely confident heading into the fight and has revealed that he believes he will finish Nastyukhin in one round.
“Timofey and I, we are similar in the sense that we both go for the finish,” Lee said. “However, I feel that my skills are much greater in every area, so what I’m going to do is mix it up, play through the full range of mixed martial arts, and I feel that my game will match up with his, and I’ll be able to exploit a weakness.”
Lee also gave his prediction on the fight where he said "There’s going to be a lot of action early on, and I’m going to end the fight in the first round with a finish.”
Frank Mir believes that a boxing win over Steve Cunningham will solidify his legacy in combat sports
Frank Mir will make his professional boxing debut this upcoming weekend on the same card as Jake Paul vs Ben Askren.
Mir was originally scheduled to fight Antonio Tarver but Tarver was not cleared to fight by the Georgia Commission.
With Tarver out, Mir will now fight the former IBF cruiserweight champion Steve Cunningham who has fought some of boxing's best including Tyson Fury and Andrew Tabiti.
If he is able to beat Cunningham, Mir believes that that will solidify his legacy in combat sports.
In an interview with BjPenn.com, Mir said "I think so, it also solidifies the fact that I’m ready to rise to any occasion. There are a lot of fighters who are businessmen. They are afraid to take risks, they might make more money than I do. But, the way I look at it, where the risks come from is where major growth occurs. My failures have made me a better human being. This adds to that part of my legacy that I will step in there at any time and rise to any occasion.”
Anthony Pettis reveals he would like to box after his PFL run
Former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis has revealed that after he is done in PFL he would like to venture into boxing.
Pettis has also revealed that former boxing world champion Oscar De La Hoya turned down a fight with him when De La Hoya revealed he will be returning to the ring.
To see Pettis talk about the situation, check out the video below.
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