Conor McGregor Didn’t Give Dustin Poirier Proper Respect
Next weekend one of the biggest trilogies in MMA history takes place in Las Vegas as Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier battle it out. Their first fight took place back in 2014, with McGregor taking the first fight by TKO. Their rematch was in January, with Poirier looking incredible and finishing McGregor by TKO for the first time in his career. A lot was said going into this fight about McGregor being as focused as he had been going into a fight in a long time, but according to his teammate Artem Lobov, while the preparation was there, the respect was not.
Full quote via MMAFighting.com:
“To be honest, it wasn’t like he wasn’t fully focused or anything, he just probably didn’t give Dustin the respect he deserved,” Lobov told BJPenn.com. “He was more thinking about boxing Manny (Pacquiao) after the fight and was getting ready for that as Conor saw that as the challenge and Dustin was just going to be a warmup fight. Obviously, it didn’t work out that way. Dustin did his homework and improved a lot.”
The KO loss to Poirier took social media by storm, drawing a lot of criticism around his camp and that potentially he is not in the right space to further his career. SBG Ireland is among the best camps in the world and is where he has been his entire career. But upon this loss, people were suggesting that he should move camps to somewhere else. Lobov scoffs at that idea.
“Hold on, you mean leave the coach that helped him become the first ever two-weight world champion? You mean that coach?” Lobov said. “The coach that helped him achieve something that nobody has achieved before. Is that the coach you want him to leave? Come on now….
“We all talked about this. Sometimes Conor maybe wasn’t committed, wasn’t training as hard as he should have. We know what the issues are. It has nothing to do with the coaches. Now, he’s committed again, he’s training all the time, and he’s with the right people.”
“To be honest with you, if you look at the second fight, it was developing how the first fight went,” Lobov said. “That is what I expected. The only thing that made a difference where the leg kicks. It wasn’t that he wasn’t training to defend leg kicks, but those kicks are very unique. When you spar in training and you wear shin pads you don’t feel those kicks and you lift your leg to check. However, in the fight, that doesn’t work anymore. Conor is now aware of that and I see the fight going how it already was going and the way the first fight went and I see Conor stopping Dustin early in this fight, I see Conor stopping Dustin in the first round.”
The trilogy fight between McGregor and Poirier is projected to do record numbers for the UFC and Dana White, and I know for a fact most of us here at Vendetta Sports Media will be tuned in Saturday, July 12th. Keep an eye on our socials for more coverage of this bout leading up to fight night!
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