According to UFC President Dana White, there was a very real chance that fans could have lost out on the trilogy fight between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier.
Last week, Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier were involved in a very public and very personal dispute about a $500,000 donation that McGregor promised to send Poirier’s Good Fight Foundation. The issue? The money never arrived, as Poirier disclosed on social media.
McGregor would give his side of the story, stating that the donation had not been provided due to Team Poirier’s failure to provide a breakdown of how the funds would be allocated. Before long, McGregor’s temper spun out of control to the point of the Irishman calling off the entire fight and issuing an open challenge for someone to take Poirier’s place at UFC 264.
Within hours of the public dispute and McGregor’s supposed cancellation, the UFC made it official: Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier III will be your UFC 264 main event this July. Questionable timing aside, Dana White was right in the middle of the conflict and can attest that the beef was as real as it gets.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of chances that was gonna fall apart,” White said in an interview with TSN. “I saw some conspiracy theorists thinking that that was to help promote the fight. Absolutely none of that was done to help promote the fight. I can assure you of that. But we got it done.”
According to White, it wasn’t just Conor McGregor who was prepared to walk away from the fight before cooler heads ultimately prevailed.
“Both guys,” White said when asked if he had to talk McGregor back into the fight. “We had to go back and forth. Listen, man, we’ve been doing this for 20 years. This is what we do. We get it done.”
On July 10, Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier will have the opportunity to settle the score, both in terms of their renewed animus and, more importantly, resolving who is the better competitor.
Are you convinced that the recent public drama between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier was legit?
