Conor McGregor may be at a crossroads in his career after suffering a knockout loss to Dustin Poirier in the UFC 257 main event.
While he was a big favorite for the night, the former two-division UFC champion struggled to deal with Poirier’s brutal kicks in the legs, which then opened him up to a series of powerful punches that ended up ending the fight in the second round. Afterwards, McGregor was upset about his performance when he fell by knockout for the first time in his mixed martial arts career.
According to UFC President Dana White, McGregor now has only two choices for his career after falling to Poirier in his first fight back after a year off.
“I think it will make you more hungry,” White said of McGregor at the UFC 257 post-fight press conference. “There are two ways to happen – more hungry or I’m fed up. He has the money. I mean, when you think about it, I’m a big Rocky fan. This is how Rocky 3. When you get off a 310-foot yacht, do you know what I mean? You are living such a good life. It’s hard to be a savage when you live the way he does and have the money he has.
“On his rise, he was a hungry young boy. He had no money and wanted good things. He wanted beautiful suits, beautiful cars, beautiful houses. He has everything he ever wanted. So I don’t know. Go one way or the other. “
Inside Rocky 3, Sylvester Stallone’s coach played by the late Burgess Meredith warns him before a fight against a ferocious rookie.
“Three years ago, you were supernatural,” said Meredith’s character, “Mick.” “You were tough and nasty and you had a cast iron jaw, but then the worst thing that happened to you, that could happen to any fighter: you have become civilized.”
Is it possible that McGregor became civilized after living in luxury?
It is hard to deny that McGregor’s life has changed dramatically in recent years, after he became one of the highest paid athletes in all sports. He took home a nine-figure prize for a boxing match against Floyd Mayweather in 2017, and since then McGregor has only been 1-2 in the UFC, with one-sided defeats to Poirier and the current lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov.
White questioned whether McGregor would want to fight again after making so much money in his career. But the Irish star has rarely wavered in his desire to compete out of bouts to come to terms with the UFC over specific opponents.
The defeat on Saturday night is definitely a setback, but it does not mean that it is the end of the road for McGregor, especially with the possibility of another fight against Poirier now that they have split a pair within the octagon.
“We’ll see,” said White. “I’m sure that in a few hours he will blow me up, telling me a million things he wants to do. We’ll see what he wants to do from here.
“There is always a trilogy when you are 1-1.”