Dustin Poirier has cast doubt on Conor McGregor’s motivations following McGregor’s abrupt injury TKO defeat to Max Holloway in the UFC 329 main event.
McGregor’s long-awaited return lasted about 69 seconds, ending when he appeared to injure his knee while throwing a leaping opening kick. The bout was his first in five years, following a broken leg in his trilogy fight against Poirier.
Poirier suggested the time away and McGregor’s success may have changed what drives him. “When you have a built-in safety net of the money you've made and the career you've had, there's had to be a point throughout this five years when he's planning this comeback that he looks in the mirror and asks himself, 'What the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this?'”
“And I believe the answer to that is he's addicted to the limelight. He's addicted to people talking about him. He's addicted to being in headlines. I don't know if he's addicted to the fight itself anymore,” Poirier added, later calling it “the big question.”
McGregor reportedly has one fight left on a restructured UFC deal and has posted that he intends to rehab, train and fight out his contract. Poirier, who leads their series 2-1 with two finishes, framed the challenge ahead in stark terms: “If he is [addicted to the fight], then he'll find a way to put himself in a in a grimy gym and do that old-school work that nobody wants to do… It's a lot harder to do it when you don't have to anymore.”
