LAS VEGAS — Conor McGregor wore a plaid purple suit and sunglasses when he performed some of his greatest Vegas hits at his UFC 264 news conference Thursday ahead of his latest attempt to roll back the mixed martial arts clock.
The biggest star in combat sports preened, strutted and misbehaved at T-Mobile Arena, delighting his fans in a raucous crowd anticipating the finale to one of the biggest fight trilogies in recent history on Saturday night.
McGregor threw a bottle of Dustin Poirier’s hot sauce into the stands early on and then prowled the stage, security guards separating him from his opponent. He threw a kick at Poirier during their event-ending faceoff — when he was too far away to connect, of course.
In between, the loquacious Irishman insulted Poirier’s wife, repeatedly vowed to kill Poirier in the cage, questioned Poirier’s love for his native Louisiana and called Poirier a common epithet that’s much less loaded on McGregor’s side of the pond.
Poirier and the assembled fans got another recital of McGregor’s classic verbal combination of dexterity and brutality, the secret to burrowing inside the heads of several opponents during his rocket ride into the sports stratosphere in the previous decade.
“On Saturday night, you’re going to get walked around that octagon like a dog and then put to sleep,” McGregor said to Poirier.
“He’s not in the same stratosphere as me,” McGregor insisted later. “The man looks disgraceful up here. He…
