Dustin Poirier on Beating Conor McGregor, Calf Kicks, Possible 3rd Fight

Did you see DC's breakdown in detail? I did. Of the second fight versus the first fight with Connor? Very interesting. It is, but I see a lot of people talking funny stuff about like, the leg kick didn't knock him out. What happened? Like, so DC says in the detail breakdown, I kick Connor's calf and Connor steps back and his leg kind of goes. And DC says, well, that's the leg kick that, you know, hurt his leg or whatever. But when he went after that leg kick, he kind of reached down to grab the foot and threw an upper cut. And I was switched stands. So I threw a cross from my backhand that clipped him good. And that's when he took the step back and was hurt. I think that's a detail people are missing. That right hand. Well, you certainly you landed a lot of solid shots in that fight. But there's no doubt that leg kick was fucking that right leg up. For sure. But the detail, what I was going to get over is the the difference between the first fight and the second fight was you were landing hard leg kicks in the first fight, but you were landing them on the thigh and then it switched over to the calf. Well, what a crazy difference that calf kick has made in MMA over the last few years. Yeah, it's really nuts. It is, man. And it doesn't take many and it doesn't take as much commitment. You know, a thigh kick, you're turning your hips over more tie style. You're really setting your position, whipping this calf kick. You can flick, you know, you flick like a jab and just catch the top of the calf. And it's it's so wild that this one kick was almost ignored. I always give Benson Henderson credit because I think he was the first guy to start using it in the UFC. But for whatever reason, he didn't have the same impact with it. It just I don't know. I'd have to go over some fights. Huge legs. I'm sure he gets hardest. I'm sure he kicks hard as fuck. But for whatever reason, he wasn't stopping guys with calf kicks. But then along the way, somewhere in the last, what was it? Five, six years or something like that? Not maybe not even that far back. Maybe not even which is crazy, which is crazy. I can't think of a thing, a single technique that revolutionized the sport that way. Right. Right. And like I said, about the calf, you can't take many because there's nowhere for the swelling to go. So that's why it's so painful and debilitating your your your nerves and your foot kind of stop working with you. It's bad stuff. There's no meat there either. I was explaining to someone. I'm like, just just karate chop your arm right here where the bone is. It hurts just to do that. Now, imagine someone kicking that. And that's what it's like when you get kicked in the calf. There's nothing there. There's no meat. And even when you turn your shin outward to check it, you still get it. You it's still bad, man. Yeah. Well, I noticed that in the Connor fight. Yeah. You could see somewhere in the first round when he started realizing like, oh, this is a real problem. Yeah. And Connor doesn't have the ability to switch stances or if he does, he doesn't do it. Yeah, definitely didn't do it in that fight. And it was only going to get worse. That was second round. You know, we had three more rounds, 15 more minutes of me chopping that leg. Yeah. If we do it again, it'll be interesting to see what he does different in preparation or by defending that, you know. But you were such such a different guy in the second fight. You know, you first of all, you weren't debilitating yourself getting down to 145 pounds. Yeah. I mean, you were a big 145. Like how rough was that cut? It was horrible. And it made me hate the process because my quality of life sucked. You know, training camps were torture. You know, I would walk around 190. Jesus Christ. I'd get up to 190. I'd get up to 190. That's so crazy. Yeah. Oh my God. You get up to 190 and go down to 145, 45 fucking pounds. Let me tell you this. When I fought Cup Swanson in London, England, I took it on short notice. And I just won a fight before and it was right around Christmas. So I was eating. And when they called me, they asked me my weight and I told them I won 70. But I was like 187 or something. And it was like really short notice. So we my team fly out there. I'm 30 pounds over when we land, you know, fight week. They check. Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh my God. They check your weight fight week when you show up to make sure I was I was 176 and it was a 45. Oh my God. Yeah. But you made it made it. How the fuck did you make that? I don't know. Almost died. I don't I feel like wayans were kind of blurry. I don't like my memories gone from wayans. It's not good for you. Do you think it makes sense though for you to be fighting Connor for the title? No, I don't think so. Do you think it would it should be Oliveira? Connor has been away so long. His last two fights at 155 he's lost. So you can't put him in there for a title fight. Right. How could you, you know, justify doing that when they got when you have guys like Oliveira? But if Khabib retires and they say, hey, this is for all the marbles, you're not going to say no. What are you going to say? You're going to say I'm a purist. What are you going to say? I don't know. If Dana pulls you aside, he goes, doesn't have to make sense. Of course. What? Let's make some money. Yeah. We're fighting for the belt. Yeah, you have to fight for the belt. Yeah. We'll see what happens, man. I think it's going to be something soon because we've got to keep it moving. They're not going to sit forever. Chasing Khabib and the division has to move on. It is interesting that in the time where that low calf kick is coming to prominence. And you know, this is also a time when Connor started moving away from the sport, took time off, fought boxing, you know, then came back and had the fight with Khabib and then came back and had the fight with cowboy. The calf kick was never in play in any of his fights. But if you look at him stylistically, and this is one of the things I love DC's detail that other than he does on ESPN, it's amazing. But when he broke down Connor's heavy weight on the right leg, he leans in like this all the time. He puts a lot of weight on that right leg when he paused in that Southpaw stance. And because you fight Southpaw a lot as well, it just opens up that kick so big. It's such a big weapon. And sometimes he, like you said, that wide stance as well, it's just hard to check the kick from that wide stance. What's a crazy stance for everything other than calf kicks? It's a great stance. I mean, he's so good at moving in and covering distance with that stance. It's very karate like. Great countering. Like you see a karate bounce back and forth to boom attack. And he has a hell of a left hand where he, you know, he's knocked out a bunch of guys with it, with that counter, with that pool too. And that's what we worked on a lot that training camp with my boxing coach, Diah Davis, is that pool to baiting him in to throw the pool to. Yeah. The one time when you, there's one of the times you caught him several times, but one time we caught him with that counter right hook and you pointed at him like, ah, gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. That felt good. I just felt like I was kind of grabbing the wheel and starting to let him understand, oh, this guy's changed. Yeah. Like, this isn't the same fight. DC also broke down at the end of the first round. You kind of gently punched him in the stomach. Just gently like, Hey man, good round. Good game, buddy. Good round. There was a little, there's a little gamesmanship going on there. I didn't, I didn't do it in the, in the moment. I didn't do it like, uh, like you're thinking about it. Yeah. It just happens. Just natural. Yeah. What did you say to him at the end of the first round? You said something. When we were hitting each other with, with the, with the shoulders, I was, uh, having fun asking him, I think I told him, how'd you like that clavicle? Just messing around. You know, how'd you like that clavicle? Just messing around. That might be the first time a human being has said, how'd you like that clavicle? A delivered one. I think that's probably, he got me back better though. You think of all the sentences that people have said throughout history? How am I, that clavicle? Yeah. There might be like two or three other humans that have ever lived that have said those words together. How did you like that clavicle? Right? Yeah. That's not a, that's not, that's not a word you phrase. You use often. Very uncommon phrase. How'd you like that? Like that clavicle. Uh, man. Then he started cracking me with them. Yeah. Well, he had more pop on his for sure. The cowboy fight, that was bananas. He was able to do that kind of damage. Yeah. Broke his nose. Maybe. Yeah, for sure. I mean, he was bleeding out of the nose right away. That was nuts. A lot of people didn't even understand what was happening. I wonder why, uh, cause when he started hitting me with them, I just naturally felt like I just put my head on the other side. Yeah. Here it is. Well, it's a, it's obviously something that he's practiced. Yeah. The, one of the things about this fight is you look like the bigger guy. I, I'm pretty sure I weighed more than him. Yeah. You looked like it. You look more muscular. He's a, you know, he's muscular, but his waist is small. He's just built, just built different. And I just, I probably walk around and have it in him. Do you feel like now after that first fight that you got his number or after the second fight? It's, it's fighting, man. I don't think you ever really, he'll make adjustments. Yeah. He'll make adjustments. It'll be a completely different fight. Like the first one in the second was different. The third one's going to be different as well. Cause I'm going to make adjustments as well. I got to switch it up and keep things fresh and keep him guessing. Yeah. Now, ideally, when would you like the rematch? June, July. June, July. Because I'm still, my wife's birthday's coming up. So we're going to go somewhere for a couple of days. Like I'm still not, I will, if, if, if I get the call and it's time to go to work, I will lock myself in training camp, but, uh, I'm still not right now ready to just go to back to Florida a month removed from, from the last fight and then lock down for another 10 weeks or whatever it is. So we'll see. If they call, I will do it, but I would rather it be a little bit further. Let me enjoy my life, uh, back home in Louisiana before I go right back out to Florida. So if they call you and say may, you will be doing it, but you would rather June and July. I'll do it anytime. I would be really shocked if they decided to do it in May just that close after that KO. I just don't think that's wise. Yeah, it is soon. Yeah. And, and obviously, I mean, honestly, it's not, it's not a lot of time to adjust and work on what we need, what he needs to work on for the calf kick or what I want to switch up, you know, we'll just right back in camp, getting ready to fight. We're not really evolving outside of training camp. For me, I learned things in training camp because it's just constant every day under pressure, but it's the time between camps. Like right now when I'm in the gym, having fun rolling and doing slight kickboxing drills with my friends where I feel like the big gains are made when I'm having fun. Because I'm kind of tunnel vision and training camp. I'm showing up. All right, let's wrestle. All right. 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