Conor McGregor said his leg already was compromised going into the Dustin Poirier trilogy fight.
McGregor (22-6 MMA, 10-4 UFC) suffered a broken left tibia and fibula in his TKO loss to Poirier (28-6 MMA, 20-5 UFC) in the UFC 264 main event this past Saturday. The fight was stopped after the first round.
The Irish superstar underwent a successful three-hour surgery Sunday and was discharged from the hospital on his 33rd birthday Wednesday. McGregor, who will be spending his recovery time in Los Angeles, took to Instagram to claim UFC officials were aware left leg already was injured prior to entering the fight, which his coach John Kavanagh alluded to in a recent interview.
“I was injured going into the fight,” McGregor said. “People were asking me when was the leg break – at what point did the leg break? Ask Dana White. Ask the UFC. Ask Dr. Davidson, the head doctor of the UFC. They knew. My leg – I had stress fractures in my leg going into that cage. There was debate about pulling the thing out because I was sparring without shin pads, and I was kicking. I kicked the knee a few times, so I had multiple stress fractures in the shin bone above the ankle, and then I had trouble with the ankle anyway throughout the years of fighting all the time. And I also was wrapping my ankle every training session. I even (did) a lot of training sessions when the ankle was sore – I still wouldn’t stop training.
“I used to just train on my back, and that’s how I developed those ground-and-pound shots from the back. That’s why Dustin backed away when he was on top of me and I was landing the upkicks and the elbows. It’s a horrible place to be in when you’re against someone like me. You can’t land. You take so much effort to try and land shots from your top position, and while you’re trying to do that and losing your energy, you’re getting lumped out by downward elbows and vicious upkicks. It was a skill I developed because I had the damaged leg, and I had to adjust my training.”
McGregor says he would have never considered going under the knife, but now he’s getting exactly what he needed – which is a titanium rod in his shin bone. He is set on proving doubters wrong by making a comeback as he eyes a fourth fight with Poirier.
