Conor McGregor says Dustin Poirier is a dead man walking leading up to UFC 264.
The mixed martial arts star told journalist Ariel Helwani on Thursday that his trilogy-completing fight with “The Diamond” will end with his opponent “going out in a stretcher.”
“I’m in a vicious mode,” McGregor told the BT Sport host. “No family around, you know. I’m a bad man without the fam. You know what I mean? And that’s the way I’m feeling right now.”
“The Notorious” McGregor handily beat Poirier at UFC 178 in September 2014, when both men were featherweights, before being knocked out himself in January’s UFC 257 return fight, contested at lightweight.
“It’s never personal,” McGregor said of his killer mindset leading up to Saturday’s lightweight bout. “It’s just a corpse. This is a corpse in front of me that I need to just dissect and rip through.”
Fight week is 𝐻𝐸𝑅𝐸.
— UFC (@ufc) July 5, 2021
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Mr. Helwani, conducting his debut interview for BT Sport, ended the interview by asking for McGregor’s official prediction.
“How do you see it playing out on Saturday night?” the journalist asked.
“Dustin’s going out in a stretcher,” McGregor replied without hesitation. “That’s my prediction. He’s going out of this fight in a stretcher. I’m ready for it all. I’m not jumping the gun. I’m ready for it all, but he’s going out in a stretcher.”
The two men will battle in Saturday’s main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, with the main card starting at 10 p.m. EDT.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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