After months of speculation a rematch between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier has finally been officially announced for UFC 257 on January 23rd at Fight island, Abu Dhabi.
It had already been known that Poirier had signed his bout agreement recently, but now McGregor has also confirmed via his Mac Life site that he too has put pen to paper on the contract for a second showdown between the two lightweights.
By the time fight night comes it will have been well over six years since the first meeting between the two, which ended swiftly with a first round TKO victory for McGregor, which put him firmly on the path to eventual title glory at featherweight, followed by winning the lightweight belt too.
For his part Poirier also eventually fought his way to a lightweight title shot, losing out to Khabib Nurmagomedov in September of last year by a third round submission.
Since then ‘The Diamond’ has only fought once, earning a unanimous decision win over Dan Hooker in an instant contender for ‘Fight Of The Year’ back in June, giving him an overall 10-2 (+1nc) run in the years following his first fight with McGregor.
McGregor also lost by submission when he went up against Nurmagomedov in a title fight back in 2018, and he too has only fought once in the time since, TKO’ing Donald Cerrone in just 40 seconds back in January, giving him an overall 6-2 record since fighting Poirier.
No doubt the UFC will be glad to have their biggest star back in action on pay-per-view, though there will be some disappointment that due to the ongoing Covid pandemic that it will have to take place behind closed doors and likely won’t have the usual media circus pre-fight that we’ve become accustomed to when ‘The Notorious’ fights.
