Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor | Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

Dustin Poirier nearly had his fourth fight with Conor McGregor.

Poirier and McGregor have a well-storied history, most recently fighting at UFC 264 where McGregor shattered his leg in their trilogy fight. After that bout, McGregor lobbed vicious insults and Poirier and his family, turning their rivalry into a more bitter type of feud. And recently that feud nearly spilled over into the public.

“No. Dude, that was crazy,” Poirier told Ariel Helwani about nearly running into McGregor at a convention in Las Vegas. “I had just finished my signing for Celsius and I’m partnered with a seltzer water… so I was walking over to their booth to meet some people and Conor was behind me apparently. And my agent was walking behind me and he grabs me — Conor might have saw the back of my head, I don’t know. I didn’t see him.

“[My agent] grabs my shoulders and says, ‘Go this way, to the right, to the right.’ So we start walking to the right, I’m like, ‘The booth is right there!’ We’re walking to the right and once we get clear of everybody he’s like, ‘Dude, we almost had a big problem.’ That’s what that was.”

McGregor did see Poirier as a video of their near run-in made the rounds on social media, but did not try to stir up anything with the former interim lightweight champion. But Poirier believes that if they’d seen each other, instead of just passed by, things might have gotten dramatic.

“I don’t know, bro. We have such a long history,” Poirier said. “He said some foul things. You ever watch Family Guy? You know when Peter and the Chicken run into each other? They freaking go on this crazy fight, they’re falling down hills, they’re fighting for an hour — that’s what would have happened.

“Yeah, for sure [we would have fought]. Just everything we have over the past however many years since our first fight. So sure we would have.”

“It’s not cordial anymore,” Poirier continued. “The both of us, I believe both of us. Once my guy walked us away and told me what happened and why we had to make that right, I was like, ‘If we’d have made eye contact, if our eyes would have met, it would have been bad, probably.”

Of course there is a way for the two men to settle their differences: a fought fight in the octagon. McGregor was supposed to face Michael Chandler at UFC 303 until an injury forced him off the card. Now the former champ-champ has his eyes set on a 2025 return, and recently suggested Poirier as a possible opponent. “The Diamond” also recently said he intends to fight at least one time next year before hanging up the gloves for good, but doesn’t seem sold on the idea that McGregor is actually coming back.

“I don’t know if he’s ever going to fight again,” Poirier said. “… We’ll see. I don’t know. I was kind of thinking for sure he was at the beginning of his return against Chandler, then it kept getting drug on, and I don’t know.”

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Contender Series is officially in the books for 2024. Over 40 new UFC signees have joined the promotion in the past couple of months and quite a few of them look to be very promising. Look for my prospect breakdown from this season later this week.

EXIT POLL

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