Saturday night, Dustin Poirier took on the biggest star the sport of MMA has ever seen, Conor McGregor, and knocked him out. Certainly, there’s no way to take away from this achievement. McGregor was heavily favored by both fans and analysts and was widely seen as a bad matchup for Poirier. Poirier’s gameplan was stellar in both conception and execution. He used clinch wrestling to tire McGregor out, calf kicks to destroy his mobility, kept himself safe with excellent pocket defense and finished the job with his trademark killer instinct.
But Conor McGregor played into Poirier’s hands with his own changes, and this article will be looking at how arguably the best striker in the history of the sport was defeated in a fight almost entirely on the feet.