The way Straight Blast Gym Ireland head John Kavanagh sees it, Dustin Poirier is facing a very strong mental challenge in his upcoming rematch with Conor McGregor . Even though it’s been more than six years since the two first met, Kavanagh believes that initial pairing, which McGregor (22-4 MMA, 10-2 UFC) won via first-round TKO , will weigh heavily on Poirier (26-6 MMA, 18-5 UFC) at UFC 257 . “I think you can spend a lifetime going to sports psychologists and talking to this person and that person; that’s not going to have been erased from his mind,” Kavanagh recently told TheMacLife . “He knows that he is facing somebody who can shut off his lights very, very rapidly and now is a lot more powerful and a lot more experienced than he was even then, so it’s a tough, uphill battle for Dustin.” McGregor’s longtime head coach, Kavanagh was in charge of preparing for Poirier in 2014, and he’s been tasked with the challenge again, ahead of their Jan.
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