Breaking: Conor McGregor set to return to the Octagon opposite Dustin Poirier at UFC 257

Former two-division UFC champion Conor McGregor is set to return to the Octagon against Dustin Poirier in the main event of UFC 257 on January 23.

News of this bout was first reported by MMA Fighting.

McGregor and Poirier have fought once before. The pair first met in the featherweight division in 2014, with McGregor winning by first-round knockout.

Since then, both men have achieved massive success in the lightweight division, with McGregor winning the division’s undisputed title in 2016, and Poirier capturing the interim belt in 2019.

Earlier this year, the two lightweight stars began discussing a potential rematch on social media. Initially, the pair agreed to meet in a charity exhibition fight in Dublin, Ireland, outside the UFC’s Octagon. However, UFC President Dana White then interjected, offering the pair a legitimate fight on January 23.

While both men quickly claimed to have accepted this offer from White, negotiations for the fight seemed to be moving along slowly, with recent reports even suggesting that McGregor could fight Justin Gaethje on the same date instead.

In the end, however, the matchup was successfully made.

McGregor last fought in January, when he defeated record-collecting veteran Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone via first-round TKO. It took him just 40 seconds to seal the deal with a series of shoulder strikes, a head kick, and a volley of ground strikes.

Prior to his win over Cerrone, McGregor had not tasted victory since all the way back in November of 2016, when he knocked out Eddie Alvarez to become a two-division UFC champion. After his win over Alvarez, he came up short in a blockbuster boxing match with undefeated legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2017, then tapped out to undefeated UFC lightweight champ Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2018.

Dustin Poirier, meanwhile, last fought in June, when he defeated New Zealand’s Dan Hooker by decision in one of the best fights of the year thus far. The victory over Hooker separated Poirier from his own submission loss to Nurmagomedov.

Who do you think will win this anticipated rematch between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier?