Coach Believes “It’s Just a Matter of Time” Before McGregor Stops Poirier

Conor McGregor’s striking coach isn’t necessarily predicting the star will put away Dustin Poirier even quicker than he did in 2014. But, recently he outlined why he’s pretty, pretty confident the ‘Notorious’ one will take out ‘The Diamond’ again.

Owen Roddy believes it’s “just a matter of time”

McGregor is preparing to face Poirier in the headliner of UFC 257, which will go down on January 23rd in Abu Dhabi. As noted above, the two fought back in 2014 when they were both competing at featherweight, and McGregor needed less than two minutes to stop Poirier.

Well, recently McGregor’s media branch, The MacLife, has been interviewing the star’s coach team. One of the coaches the outlet spoke with was McGregor’s striking coach, Owen Roddy. 

While discussing how he sees the rematch playing out, Roddy said this (quotes via MMA Fighting).

“Poirier gets hit an awful lot, so I believe it’s just a matter of time,” Roddy said. “When Conor hits him, how long can he last after that.

Whether he goes to sleep straight or he toughs it out a little bit, but Conor has 25 minutes in there to land on the chin. For me, there’s serious odds.”

And Roddy continued with this.

“I always say this, it’s going to take Conor maybe a minute or so, two minutes and Conor could see the shot in 10 seconds, you never know,” Roddy said.

“But it might take Conor a couple of minutes to find a shot and land a shot. Once he lands the shot, Poirier’s either asleep or he’s out on his feet and then it’s only a matter of time before the second one lands.

Whether it takes a couple of minutes or a round or two, Conor will find the shots.

“Conor has the best ability in the world to get the read of his opponents. You could bring somebody in that Conor has never seen before, never watched and you just watch Conor.

He throws his shots out there, he feels it out, he records the reactions and then he finds the killer blow and then he lands. 99-percent of people don’t recover after that first shot so I see it going the exact same way.”

Thoughts?

Even the biggest Poirier boosters would likely acknowledge the former interim champ has taken some big shots in several of his outings. So, against a heavy-handed and precise striker like McGregor that could be a problem for him, again.

That said, you have to wonder if Poirier might try to mix in his wrestling and clinch game more this time around, Even if he’s unable to keep McGregor on the ground, doing so will fatigue the latter and will drain him of his power.