Former champ champ Conor McGregor fights Dustin Poirier in the main event of UFC 257 on January 23. In their first fight, at featherweight, "The Notorious" TKO'd "The Diamond" in 106 seconds at UFC 178 on September 27, 2014. A lot has changed for both since, but in a recent interview with The Mac Life, Conor's coach John Kavanagh said Poirier has gotten better, but ...
“I think he’s definitely gotten better,” said Kavanagh of Poirier. “There’s a few more takedown attempts now in his fights. I hadn’t seen it before, he has a good guillotine. We can see that. Then his volume, his conditioning is looking on point. You can see in his fights he has an ability to take a lot of punishment and still come forward. Pick any of his last few fights to see that quality.
“However, he’s fighting a different animal than any of those guys. Somebody with true one-punch knockout power that he’s already felt. I think you could spend a lifetime talking to sports psychologists and talking to this person or that person, that’s not going to be erased from his mind.”
“There’s nothing to be said when you’ve really badly hurt someone like that so fast. It’s not like it was a decision win or maybe some sort of argument to be made, or it was a bit back and forth and Conor got a shot off. It was a bad night for Dustin. It was very one-sided. When you look at some of the shots he’s absorbed, he’s a bigger man now, and you could say maybe there’s some argument he can absorb more shots now, but he’s fighting a bigger man as well."
https://twitter.com/thenotoriousmma/status/522509279518265344
“If you remember back to the fight, the opening hook kick, it just whistled by his head. A couple of inches lower and that might have outdone the [Jose] Aldo fight. So look they’ve both matured physically, age-wise, they’re in their 30s now and families. Dustin’s had a couple more contests than Conor since then in the octagon but Conor never stopped training. He’s obviously had a boxing match and has done other stuff. It’s interesting to see how the styles meet up this time.”
“[Poirier] knows that he is facing somebody who can shut off his lights very, very rapidly and now is a lot more powerful and a lot more experienced than he was even then. It’s a tough, uphill battle for Dustin, but Dustin’s a phenomenal fighter, a great fighter, and I know him and Conor have certain agreements, charity things outside, which is great. I think that’s what professional sports should be about anyways. But yeah, I’m really looking forward to this one.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBxJY7e2Knw
h/t Damon Martin for MMA Fighting