“There was nothing within that five minutes that we saw that was competitive anywhere.”
Chael Sonnen has no interest in seeing Conor McGregor vs Dustin Poirier for a fourth time after watching last weekend’s brief but brutal UFC 264 main event.
McGregor broke his leg in the first round of his trilogy fight against Poirier but ‘The Notorious’ insists he was carrying a lower leg injury into the contest and that the UFC was aware of it.
A furious McGregor roared from his corner that his feud with Poirier wasn’t over before making a number of threats that led Poirier to welcome another opportunity to fight his Irish rival.
Considering McGregor’s drawing power and his history with Poirier, nobody would be surprised about a fourth instalment but former UFC title challenger, Sonnen, can’t see the sense in doing it again.
“There was talk about 20 minutes after this was done about running it back, which would have been for the fourth time,” Sonnen told Max Kellerman for ESPN.
Chael Sonnen assesses Conor McGregor performance
“There was nothing within that five minutes that we saw that was competitive anywhere.
“You used to be able to really count on Conor McGregor, and by the way, I’m not kicking a guy when he’s down, I’m just discussing what I saw. You used to count on Conor to win the stand-up portion and he was a really hard guy to take down and you could never hold him there if you got him there. These were things you could count on.
“He’s not winning any portion of these fights, and I don’t bring that up to put him down, I bring that up to tell you that there is no need, at least from a competitive architecture, there is nothing here that warrants seeing these guys do it again.”
All you pull out merchants wouldn’t last 13 seconds in my world.
My 4 part Netflix docuseries coming soon has the entire bts.
I’m gonna title it “Mad Mac’s: Fury Road” pic.twitter.com/nNNShC8mfo— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) July 16, 2021
McGregor has already started his recovery after going under the knife on Sunday and he is aware that it will be a long way back to full fitness.
If he’s out for a full year, as UFC President Dana White suspects, then McGregor will be 34 when he next sets foot in the Octagon and some have suggested that he will have to prove himself against a lower-ranked fighter before he can justify a fourth clash with Poirier.
Sonnen anticipates a significant drop in quality from McGregor the next time we see him, based on a number of factors which include his track record following spells on the sidelines, question marks over his dedication and the recuperation process following surgery.
“Conor is a very good fighter, not compared to Dustin Poirier,” Sonnen continued. “That’s the only point that I’m attempting to make.
“Conor also had a lack of training. We were told this from his own side, he had a lack of focus. That’s when it was a choice. When he was healthy and feeling good, he still chose to follow the distractions instead of the discipline.
“To attempt to guess the regression Conor is for sure going to show if he comes back in 18 months to 24 months as doctors are hypothesising, things aren’t going to get a whole lot worse. If you leave there damaged, broken, you have two judges calling it a 10-8 round inside of five minutes, it doesn’t get a whole lot worse.”
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