Rafael dos Anjos continues to position himself in the best place possible to get a crack at Conor McGregor.
The former lightweight champion currently is in Las Vegas cutting weight to serve as an alternate for the UFC 264 main event trilogy bout between Dustin Poirier and McGregor, which takes place Saturday at T-Mobile Arena. The news of dos Anjos serving as a backup first was reported by Combate.
The message clearly got to McGregor (22-5 MMA, 10-3 UFC), who responded to dos Anjos (31-13 MMA, 19-11 UFC) Wednesday night.
“Put dos anjos in at the same time.”
Put dos anjos in at the same time.
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) July 8, 2021
McGregor and dos Anjos have had a long history. The pair was scheduled to fight in the UFC 196 main event, but a broken foot forced then-lightweight champion dos Anjos out of the bout. McGregor faced Nate Diaz instead, and the MMA world was flipped upside down when Diaz scored a big submission upset.
When dos Anjos moved up to welterweight, he and McGregor no longer were on each other’s radars. But more than five years after their bout was scrapped, dos Anjos is back to his original lightweight home and could finally get his wish of fighting McGregor – but only if Poirier can’t fight for some reason. The 36-year-old Brazilian most recently was seen in action this past November, when he defeated Paul Felder in a successful return to 155 pounds.
