Al Iaquinta claims Conor McGregor would have been 'embarrassed' if his UFC 264 fight against Dustin Poirier hadn't ended in first round
Al Iaquinta has claimed that Conor McGregor would have been 'embarrassed' if his UFC 264 fight against Dustin Poirier hadn’t ended in the first round.
During an interview with MMA Island, Al Iaquinta opened up on multiple topics. One of them was the UFC 264 fight between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier. Iaquinta chimed in with his thoughts on the fight and on Conor McGregor’s horrific lower leg injury that ended the fight after the first round. Iaquinta said:
“I thought it was a good fight. I mean, Dustin was, you know, Conor came out heavy with the kicks. Conor initiated kind of that clinch, and then Dustin got it down and doing work on top – Really just beat him, beat him up for the rest of that round. It would’ve been interesting to see, you know, what would’ve happened playing forward. But, in my mind and in my heart, I kind of think Conor was on his way to getting broken.”
“I think we were starting to see the beginning signs of, you know, you can kind of see. He’s very telling; his face in the corner and everything, when the fight isn’t going his way and when he’s kind of like had enough. We saw before that fourth round in the Khabib (Nurmagomedov) fight. It was painted on his face, you know, how he felt…Look, you never want to break anything, but I think he might’ve got embarrassed a little bit if that fight would’ve kept going.”
Al Iaquinta on the stress fractures angle on Conor McGregor’s injury and the latter's loss at UFC 264
On being asked about the purported stress fractures in Conor McGregor’s leg and if he thought McGregor would’ve won if he was injury-free, Al Iaquinta said:
“It’s hard to say. I mean, if he’s got an injury, and he’s coming out with those kicks, maybe you don’t wanna kick so much, you know what I mean. He made it a kicking fight when apparently he had all these stress fractures in his leg.”
Al Iaquinta reiterated that he believed Conor McGregor would’ve been dominated if the injury hadn’t stopped the fight. Iaquinta suggested that a stoppage defeat was seemingly where Conor McGregor was headed to prior to the injury stoppage. Iaquinta noted:
“You never really know…I think that he was on his way out.” (*Video courtesy: MMA Island; H/T Sportskeeda for the transcription)
Al Iaquinta’s most recent fight was a unanimous decision loss against Dan Hooker at UFC 243 (October 2019). Iaquinta hasn’t competed in an MMA bout since then, but is still a part of the UFC roster. ‘Raging’ Al has lately indicated that he’s open to returning to the octagon sooner rather than later.
Meanwhile, Conor McGregor is expected to recover from his lower leg injury and return to the octagon in about a year. The consensus in the MMA community is that McGregor is aiming to face Dustin Poirier for the fourth time when he returns in 2022.