Dustin Poirier after checking Conor McGregor’s kicks at UFC 264: “Never before have I left fight week and been sore on my actual bone”

Dustin Poirier admittedly felt the effects of Conor McGregor’s leg kicks after UFC 264, suggesting that he had never left a fight week so sore.

Poirier and McGregor collided for a third time in the headliner of last months UFC pay-per-view event, with ‘The Diamond’ once again emerging victorious. While the fight only last one round, ‘The Diamond’ says the leg kicks he received from ‘Notorious’ during their trilogy definitely left a mark.

“I’ve been checked by a lot of heavy kickers, but never before have I left fight week and been sore on my actual bone, like my knee was sore,” Poirier said on American Top Team’s Punchin’ In podcast (via MMAFighting). “Not my thigh or calf, my knee was sore.”

According to ‘The Diamond’, his sore knee was the result of him not being able to check Conor’s kicks in a traditional fashion. Instead, Poirier said he was forced to check McGregor’s kicks with his knee as opposed to his shin like normal due to the Irishman’s unorthodox stance.

“I just know from getting kicked and kicking so many times over the years that when a kick lands bad I just know it kind of hurts both of us even though it’s hitting my knee, it hurts the other guy a lot more. Just from sparring rounds I just know. There was one kick I turned my knee out a little bit. I didn’t have my weight like a traditional check and I knew that was a bad one for him. I knew that one hurt bad.”

Poirier vs. McGregor 3

Dustin Poirier believes that Conor McGregor’s fight-ending injury likely stemmed as a result of those untraditional checked kicks.

“I think it was on top of his foot, but you never know if that could have caused torque on his shin bone and cracked it. I don’t know, he was throwing hard kicks, and a lot of them were hitting my knee. I didn’t get to traditionally check the kicks, but I did turn my knee out and it was bone-on-bone and it was worse for him.”

Dustin Poirier is now expected to be the first man to challenge newly crowned UFC lightweight champion Charles Oliveira. A date and venue for that proposed fight has yet to be confirmed by promotional officials.