Conor McGregor Back in Action: UFC 264 Betting Preview

Saturday’s main event for UFC 264 will be at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, which will showcase the return of Conor McGregor (22-5-0) and Dustin Poirier (27-6-0). This marks the trilogy matchup between these two for a lightweight bout.

The main card will air around 10 p.m. ET, and then the main event will begin shortly after midnight ET. The two are aiming to settle the tiebreaker in a potential fight of the year candidate.

Main Event Showdown

In their last meeting, fans saw Poirier take out McGregor by TKO in the second round. Poirier was a massive underdog despite having some of the best fights leading up to that battle.

In addition, Poirier was also higher ranked than McGregor and still is. He comes into this matchup as the best-ranked lightweight behind current champion Charles Oliveira.

In their first meeting, which was back in 2014, the two of them were featherweights at the time. McGregor finished the battle by TKO in the first round, but both fighters have come a long way since then.

Poirier has shaken up the division with a handful of excellent victories leading up to his second battle with McGregor. At the same time, McGregor had a few good battles but then was absent from the UFC for a while.

“The Notorious” had a boxing match with Floyd Mayweather and even “retired” for the third time from the UFC. He eventually came back to land a first-round TKO against Donald Cerrone, which then made him a huge favorite against Poirier.

Poirier has a two-fight winning streak heading into this fight. The last time he lost was against Khabib Nurmagomedov back in 2019, which he actually put up a solid effort even with the loss.

Fans have been excited to watch Poirier take on some aggressive fighters in the lightweight division and come away victorious. For example, his battle with Max Holloway had a combined effort of 359 significant strikes between the two of them and a successful title defense.

Potential Outcome

McGregor comes into this one as a slight underdog, which is weird considering he is usually a favorite in these situations. The market got burned somewhat in their last meeting when McGregor was a heavy favorite, but no one could have guessed that Poirier was going to be that dominant.

There is a good chance that this fight ends early once again by some form of a stoppage. McGregor specifically does not see the judges often, even when he loses fights, but this all depends on how Poirier plays.

Poirier has no problems with finishing a fight early or letting the judges decide by looking at his balanced resume. However, he has been able to finish fights more often lately than allowing the fate of the judges to decide.

Whichever fighter has the better approach is arguably the one that is going to win. Fans saw a different McGregor last time, but can he turn it around here?