UFC 257: McGregor vs Poirier II

UFC 257 takes place on 23rd January 2021 at the UFC Fight Island in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, United Arab Emirates and features the highly anticipated five round main event rematch between Irishman Conor McGregor (22-4) and American Dustin Poirier in a high stakes bout at the top of the UFC’s lightweight division.

In their first contender, the bout took place in the featherweight division as both were attempting to make their first charge at UFC gold. McGregor talked a big game during the build up to the fight and delivered spectacularly with a 67 second KO on his way to capturing his first UFC championship belt when he shocked the long time UFC champion Jose Aldo with a 13 second devastating knockout to end Aldo’s 10 year undefeated streak and reign at the top of the UFC’s featherweight ranks. McGregor then went on to style on then UFC lightweight champ Eddie Alvarez in an 8 minute masterclass to become the first ever concurrent double champion in the UFC.

Although Poirier hasn’t tasted the fully fledged UFC gold, he defeated Max Holloway over five rounds in April 2019 to capture the interim UFC lightweight belt and secured himself a shot at the champion Khabib Nurmagodev, only to fall short in the third round after Khabib submitted Dustin with a rear naked choke, the same submission that Nurmagodev finished McGregor with less than a year previous.

With champion Khabib promising to retire, this rematch between Conor and Dustin takes on an extra importance with the UFC lightweight strap likely to be up for grabs in the near future. Although both men are different fighters than when they first fought back at September 2014, the online sports betting money line has the first meeting’s victor Conor McGregor as the betting favourite at 1.34, with Dustin Porier coming in at 3.

UFC 257 will be just over a year after Conor last bout against Donald Cerrone, with the former “Champ Champ” being forced to shelve his plans to fight 3 or more times in 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Poirier also fought only once in 2020, defeating Dan Hooker by unanimous decision in June.

In the co-main event, long time Bellator MMA champion Michael Chandler will make his long awaited UFC debut against Dan Hooker in what is sure to be another great reason to tune in to biggest PPV on the year so far.