Conor McGregor plans to make Dustin Poirier 'pay with his life' when the two meet in their trilogy fight on Saturday night.
Following a controversial loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2018, 'The Notorious' suffered the fifth defeat of his professional career when he was blasted out by Poirier inside the first two rounds at the start of the year, losing his place in the official pound-for-pound rankings as a result.
McGregor (22-5), 32, of Dublin, Ireland, had reportedly been set to meet Manny Pacquiao in a blockbuster boxing showdown in Saudi Arabia this summer only for the shock loss to Poirier to scupper those plans and force him to seek revenge against 'The Diamond'.
Speaking recently at the UFC 264 ceremonial weigh-in staredown ahead of their highly-anticipated clash, McGregor told veteran UFC commentator Joe Rogan: "Joe, in 16 hours' time, this man is going to learn that if you disrespect a person's kindness and take it as a weakness, you must pay.
"Tomorrow night, I'm gonna [sic] make this man pay with his life.
"And I mean it. You're dead in that octagon tomorrow night!"
McGregor recently flew out to Las Vegas to complete the final stages of his training camp with coaches John Kavanagh and Owen Roddy and his teammate Artem Lobov believes that he is in the best shape of his life.
He said: "Conor [McGregor] is a very, very smart fighter.
"I just feel the last fight he maybe took it a little bit lightly and thought, 'I’ll just show up and do what I do and destroy him.'
"Not only that, he was already mentally and physically getting ready for a boxing fight so he wasn’t thinking leg kicks - no MMA.
"He just thought it was going to be the same way as the first fight."
Both fighters successfully made weight for UFC 264: Poirier vs McGregor III with the duo set to face each other for a third time tomorrow night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Lobov continued: "We have to give credit to Dustin. He’s done his homework.
"He’s improved a lot since the first fight and he did a good job.
"But I think now when Conor is switched on, he knows what’s up. His full focus is on this fight.
"He’s studied him, he looked at what the issues were in the second fight and honestly when Conor shows up like that? There’s no stopping him.
"So I see him stopping Dustin early, first, maybe second round. I want to say first. My prediction is first round but it could go into the second."
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