Daniel Cormier is hoping for a better ending to Conor McGregor's UFC career.
McGregor (22-6 MMA, 10-4 UFC) hasn't set foot inside the Octagon since July of 2021, when he suffered a catastrophic injury in the opening round of his clash with Dustin Poirier.
"The Notorious" had been scheduled to return last June to face Michael Chandler at UFC 303, but a toe injury resulted in the fight falling apart at short notice, and there has been no hints of the Irishman's return since then.
UFC commentator and former 2-weight champion Daniel Cormier feels that the image of a broken down McGregor at the end of that Poirier fight is a less-than-ideal lasting image to leave the UFC on.
“For me, it’s kind of sad because of this: It’s like, when a guy comes, and he’s that successful, and he’s that good, you hope that the last time you see him in the Octagon is him fighting – even if it’s him losing,” Cormier said on his 'Funky and the Champ' show with Ben Askren. “You don’t want the last memory is him sitting in the octagon with a broken leg, yelling at Dustin Poirier’s wife. It was the craziest vision I’ve ever seen. It felt like when he got here, everything was fresh, new, and it felt genuine. Then he went to nice Conor when him and Dustin fought in Abu Dhabi. Nice Conor was more preposterous than him doing what he did after the fight with Dustin the (third) time.
“Because he was holding Dustin’s liquor, they were hugging each other. It was the most odd thing I’d ever seen because that was not what we had come to expect from Conor McGregor. He gets beat by Dustin Poirier, then he goes all the way back to the other guy, but even more to the right. He was more loud, he was more obnoxious, he was nasty, talking about Dustin’s wife and all these things. He was more nasty, so even that felt forced. Then when he broke his leg, he was sitting on the ground yelling and screaming. It was almost like he was a rich guy who didn’t get his way, and there is nothing he could do about it, and he was acting out because of it. That’s like a sad visual for me after all that he became to the sport of mixed martial arts.”
