Conor McGregor took to Twitter to accept a fight with Dustin Poirier and is reportedly pushing for a date in 2020.
Hello Dustin! I accepted the @ufc offer to fight you, but told them it must happen in 2020. I’m ready for Nov 21st, given that cards recent injury issues, as well as any of the December dates, the 12th and the 19th. I’ll also still donate the $500k to The Good Fight Foundation 🙏 https://t.co/23hN4AHtoI
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) October 8, 2020
UFC superstar Conor McGregor took to social media on Thursday morning to accept a fight with Dustin Poirier and offered the November pay-per-view date on November 21. ESPN’s Ariel Helwani later reported that the UFC was looking to hold the fight in 2021, but McGregor was pushing to fight this year on one of the remaining pay-per-view dates on the aforementioned November 21 or December 12.
“The Notorious” set expectations high in January when he returned to action and had a throttling performance over Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone. Following the victory, he emphasized that he was looking to stay active in 2020 with fights that would propel him to a rematch against Khabib Nurmagomedov. Since then, McGregor has expressed frustration about being unable to compete due to the absence of a live gate amidst the coronavirus pandemic. While it has been implied by both McGregor and Dana White that there are other factors behind the scenes, it is no secret that the promotion is looking for options that will allow the McGregor/Nurmagomedov rematch to stay in-tact as that would generate the most revenue of any bout the UFC could book.
Dustin Poirier is coming off a Fight of the Year candidate against Dan Hooker in June that reestablished him as one of the top contenders in the lightweight division and kept him in the title picture. Recently, the UFC had explored a fight with fellow contender Tony Ferguson for UFC 254 as a backup for Nurmagomedov vs. Justin Gaethje. However, all sides were unable to come to terms and the UFC instead booked Michael Chandler as the backup.
Both McGregor and Poirier made headlines last month when McGregor took to social media to say that he would compete with Poirier in a charity sparring session with proceeds going to Poirier’s Good Fight Foundation. McGregor and UFC President Dana White had been in a dispute after McGregor posted images of personal messages with White on social media, although it came out that the UFC still went on to officially offer McGregor a fight with Poirier.
Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier fought once before, in 2014 at featherweight. McGregor defeated Poirier by first round knockout.
