Conor McGregor has posted a video message to his fans following his agonising first-round loss to Dustin Poirier in the final fight of their trilogy at UFC 264 this past weekend.

The video, posted on Sunday, July 11, was captioned: “Onwards and upwards we go,” and already has over a million views on the Irishman's official Twitter account (@TheNotoriousMMA).

He starts the video by acknowledging the injury that ended the fight, stating that: “Just out of the surgery room. Everything went to plan, everything went perfect, I’m feeling tremendous. We got six weeks on a crutch now, and then we begin to build back.”

Does that comment show that he may be planning to fight again in the near future?

McGregor goes on to thank the fans worldwide for tuning in, and those at the fight, which took place at the T-Mobile Arena in Nevada, Las Vegas.

However, in his classic ‘Notorious’ ways, McGregor directly called out his opponent and said: “Dustin, you can celebrate that illegitimate win all you want.”

Footage post-fight showed that the Irishman was adamant that the official decision should not go in Poirier’s favour since the fight was cut short due to a doctor’s stoppage. 

He went on to say: “You’ve [Poirier] done nothing in there, that second round would’ve shown all.”

Despite what McGregor was saying, however, most viewers would agree that even before the Irishman’s unfortunate injury, Poirier had been leading the round until that point. He also dominated the fight the last time the pair fought, January 24, when he defeated McGregor via second-round KO. 

The Notorious ended the video on a more positive note, saying: “Onwards and upwards we go team, we dust ourselves off, we build ourselves back and we come back better than ever - let’s go team!” likely putting an end to speculation of the fighter retiring. 

Where can McGregor go from here? Having just tasted back-to-back defeats for the first time in his professional career, the next fight is pivotal for his future in the fight game.

He's probably one loss away from fighting Jake Paul and that is not something he'd want to do!