Conor McGregor did his best to get into Dustin Poirier’s head during his UFC 264 pre-fight press conference last night, but in the end, despite his antics it was ‘The Diamond’ who appeared to win the war of words.
McGregor’s mind games started right away when he stole his opponent’s bottles of hot sauce from the podium, emptying one of them before casually two others off-stage.
“I’m going to go through his head,” McGregor predicted during the presser. “Put holes in him and take it off his shoulders. That’s the goal here. He’s done. This is it for him. This is the end of the road. Even after that last fight, ‘Oh I don’t love this anymore, I don’t love doing this.’ He knew what was coming. He knew the smacks he took.
“So it’s on now. Saturday night, he’s getting walked around that octagon like a dog and put to sleep.”
‘The Notorious’ also brought Porier’s wife into his trash-talk, taunting him that, “Your wife [Jolie] is your husband,” before encouraging fans in attendance to chant, “Jolie’s wife!”
However, Poirier wasn’t impressed by his performance.
“You used to be a lot better than that,” Poirier said. “The trash talk was a lot better than that. F*cking weak.”
And when McGregor was asked at the presser why he changed from being nice to his rival prior to their rematch to being hostile before the trilogy encounter, Poirier interjected with the most stinging remark of the presser.
“Cause he got knocked the f*ck out,” Poirier said. “Not McGregor fast … McGregor sleep.”
During the post-presser staredown, McGregor also lashed out at Poirier with a kick, but Poirier was unfazed, and there was a general sense that if ‘The Notorious’ had been hoping to break his opponent mentally prior to Saturday night, that he’d been unsuccessful.
“I don’t hate anybody,” Poirier said. “I’m in a different place mentally. Respect to him and everything he’s done. I just don’t care about this stuff anymore. I don’t care about this.”
