Dustin Poirier is preparing for 'the best' Conor McGregor ahead of their trilogy fight and believes the Irishman must hurt him early if he is to get a win.
McGregor stopped Poirier within just 106 seconds of their first bout, but couldn't repeat that impressive feat when he rematched the American earlier this year.
The pair squared off for a second time in Abu Dhabi at UFC 257, with Poirier coming out on top in the second round after a much closer set of early exchanges.
"If I was him, I would try to touch me early and keep me out of rhythm," Poirier explained in an interview with ESPN.
"Because if this thing starts to blossom into a fight, second, third, fourth, we start hurting in there, we start grinding it out, getting into a rhythm, I win that ten out of ten times.
"I want a blood and guts war, I want to question my will to fight, I want to be uncomfortable from the first second of the first round, I want to find out all this stuff.
"That's the thing about fighting, the only thing that's real is when that bell rings or whenever you show up and you're training, that's the only thing about fighting I love any more."
Asked what he was anticipating from McGregor, Poirier responded that he expected the Irishman to be "the best, the most focused he's been" going into the fight.
"It's all on the line for him now," the Louisiana native continued. "He's not doing this for money, he's doing this for pride, for respect, to prove that he's still an important piece of this 155 lb divisiion.
"That's a dangerous man; somebody who's doing it for themselves to prove something, he's not doing it for anything else but that, he doesn't need to.
"He's motivated, he's not coming out here to dampen his name any more, to get knocked out again or submitted again, he wants to build McGregor Enterprises back to what it was.
"Obviously he's going to try and check calf kicks if I throw them," Poirier said when asked how he expected McGregor to prepare for their bout.
"The martial artist he is and the understanding of fighting he has I'm sure he can [learn that skill], but I might not even throw calf kicks because he's expecting that.
"I'm expecting him to throw calf kicks honestly, I'm working on countering them, I'm not even working on landing them!"
The pair's rivalry started in 2014 ahead of their UFC 178 bout, which took place in the featherweight division and was McGregor's biggest career win at the time.
Poirier said he had "never disliked an opponent" more than the Irishman heading into the bout, but by the time they fought again almost six years later, they were much more friendly in the build-up.
However, relations between the pair appear to have soured again ahead of a potentially-explosive press conference next Thursday.
