LAS VEGAS — One of the most anticipated trilogy bouts in MMA history is now official.
Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor both successfully made weight Friday morning at the UFC Apex. Poirier and McGregor both weighed in at 156 pounds. The two men will meet in the main event of UFC 264 on Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena.
The score between the two men is 1-1. McGregor beat Poirier by first-round knockout at UFC 178 in 2014. Poirier returned the favor, stopping McGregor by second-round TKO in January at UFC 257. UFC president Dana White has said the winner will receive the next lightweight title shot against champion Charles Oliveira.
Former UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos weighed in as a backup in case either McGregor or Poirier withdrew this week. Dos Anjos weighed 156 pounds.
Poirier (27-6, 1 NC) has won two straight and has been beaten just once since 2016, a defeat in a lightweight title fight against undefeated all-time great Khabib Nurmagomedov. The Louisiana native, who fights out of Florida’s American Top Team, is the former UFC interim lightweight champion. Poirier, 32, is ESPN’s No. 2-ranked lightweight in the world, just behind Oliveira.
McGregor (22-5), currently unranked by ESPN, is the most recognizable star in the history of the sport, the UFC’s most bankable fighter of all time. The Ireland native owns all of the promotion’s pay-per-view records. Inside the Octagon, he was the first-ever concurrent two-division champion in UFC history when he won the lightweight title from Eddie Alvarez in 2016 while already holding the featherweight belt. McGregor, 32, has just one win and three fights since that Alvarez bout, though. And he’s looking here to regain the momentum he had during the hottest run ever in MMA.
Ahead of the co-main event, two of the top welterweight fighters in the world both made weight without a hitch. Gilbert Burns and Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson both hit the scale at 170.5 pounds. Burns (19-4) had a six-fight winning streak snapped in a welterweight title loss to Kamaru Usman at UFC 258 in February. Thompson (16-4-1) has won two in a row and has just two losses in his past 14 fights. ESPN has Burns ranked No. 4 and Thompson ranked No. 5 in the world at welterweight.
Irene Aldana missed weight by 3.5 pounds, coming in at 139.5 pounds for her bout with fellow women’s bantamweight contender Yana Kunitskaya. The bout will go on, per the UFC, but Aldana will forfeit 30% of her purse. ESPN has Aldana ranked No. 6 and Kunitskaya at No. 7 in the world at women’s 135 pounds.
