With how much success Dustin Poirier had throwing calf kicks, he expects Conor McGregor to try and do the same in their upcoming trilogy bout.
Poirier (27-6 MMA, 19-5 UFC) evened the series score at one-a-piece when he knocked out McGregor (22-5 MMA, 10-3 UFC) in the second round at UFC 257 in January. He implemented a great strategy, chopping McGregor’s legs down with brutal low kicks, which opened his offense up top, where he landed the finishing blows in Round 2.
McGregor, who was in crutches after the fight, admitted that he never trained to combat leg kicks, a mistake he heavily paid for in the rematch. Now the pair will settle the score in a rubber match, when they square off in the main event of UFC 264 on July 10.
Considering how much damage Poirier inflicted with the calf kicks, he’s expecting McGregor to draw something from that effectiveness and implement that gameplan himself.
“For me, whenever those low calf kicks first started getting more popular, and I’m a southpaw so for these calf kicks to work, it has to be against another southpaw,” Poirier said on “THE FIGHT with Teddy Atlas.” “I fought Jim Miller a few years ago back in New York at the Barclay Center, and he was the first guy to use them against me, and after that fight, my leg was so damaged, I had a whole new respect for the calf kick, the low leg kick game, and I’m expecting Conor to do the same now.
“He felt how crippling those kicks and how painful those kicks are and how much it changes the dynamic of a fight that I think he’s going to try and use them against me now. I really do, and that’s what I started doing, I started trying to use them every chance I got after I was hurt with them.”
That doesn’t mean Poirier will abandon throwing leg kicks if they’re presented to him though; he’s just going to be wary of McGregor potentially firing back some of his own.
“I’m working on still landing my offense with my low kicks, but now I’m working on defending a lot more than I used to,” Poirier said. “Just like in that fight, if he would have started checking those kicks, or if I would have been getting taken down because I was chasing that leg kick, then I would have called an audible and gone with something else. I just used them because they were there, it was damaging him, he wasn’t making the right decisions to start defending them, and I knew how much they hurt, and I knew it was going to change the fight. He wouldn’t be able to plant and throw. That power, his mobility would be taken away. The same thing in this one. If the kicks are there, I’m going to use them. If not, I’ve got a tool bag full of tricks that I can’t wait to show you guys.”
Dustin Poirier expects Conor McGregor to utilize leg kicks in trilogy – but he’ll be ready for them
