Conor McGregor has been attracting quite a bit of attention due to his extravagant entry into Wembley Stadium. Walking in with an unlit cigar between his teeth got him quite a bit of backlash from the pros. If this doesn’t ring a bell, then you might have missed out on the latest exciting news from the realm of MMA. But don’t you worry, because EssentiallySports has come up with yet another episode of MMA News Roundup.

In today’s episode, we’ll take a look at what Bisping and Smith have to say about ‘The Notorious’. Then, we’ll move to an interaction between Sean Strickland and Alex Pereira. And finally, learn about a brief exchange of words between Dan Hooker and Dustin Poirier on social media. So, without any further ado, let’s dive right into it!

Michael Bisping and Anthony Smith lash out at Conor McGregor

As Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois battled each other in the squared ring, Conor McGregor made an entrance to the arena in style. However, Michael Bisping didn’t seem to like it. He said, “Walking in with a big cigar, unlit, between the teeth. How do we feel about that? Because two words spring to mind right now. Dou**e. Bag.”

Anthony Smith further added to ‘The Count’s emotions. He said, “I don’t know what happens to people or when you change or how much money you have to have to start doing weird, dou**e-y s*** like that… I wish I was five percent as cool as he thinks he is.” This dragged out a bit of sarcastic laughter from the UFC analyst. Smith continued, “Like, how do you get to be so cool? I don’t get it. And I don’t want to just talk s*** on Conor, but come on, bro.”

While the world of mixed martial arts was waiting for the ‘Mystic Mac’ to make a comeback and fight, the Irishman has been left without a date or opponent. This has fired up a debate of whether he will return to complete the 2 fights left in his UFC contract or not. But Smith and Bisping were not happy with how he brought himself into the arena for Joshua vs. Dubois.

Next up, we have an interesting conversation between two former opponents. Well, yes! The entities in discussion are Alex Pereira and Sean Strickland. Let’s see what the discussion was all about.

Sean Strickland weighs in on his chances of knocking Alex Pereira out

Alex Pereira has begun his training at Salt Lake City, to defend his light heavyweight championship belt against Khalil Rountree Jr. at UFC 307. While he is pretty happy with the preparation, he is joined by one of his former opponents at the training camp. And the duo conversed about knockouts.

Sean Strickland claimed that even though he is not afraid of the light heavyweight champion, he would have a hard time trying to KO the man with hands of stone. ‘Tarzan’ said, “I’m not scared of Alex. But the problem is my chin… I’ll just go to sleep. It’s a weird thing when you fight Alex.” Strickland and Pereira fought each other back in UFC 276, and within just 3 minutes, ‘Poatan’ knocked his opponent out cold with a strong fist.

Strickland continued, “For me to knock Alex out, he has to do something really stupid. Like he has to do what he did with Izzy. If you gave me one free shot and you said give everything you can, I’m not knocking him out. But you do that to Alex, everybody in the roster is going to sleep.” He indeed reflected back at the time when Israel Adesanya finally defeated his long-time rival with a KO. But for Strickland to do so, he would definitely require a miracle and an error on Pereira’s part.

Now, let’s get to the final story, where Hooker asked for a rematch and Poirier refused to comply. Do you think the matchup would have been interesting? Well, it does seem like Poirier doesn’t deem it worthy of being his retirement bout.

Dustin Poirier issues a warning for Dan Hooker

Dustin Poirier and Dan Hooker went against each other back in 2020. The outcome of the bout tilted in favor of ‘The Diamond’ via a unanimous decision. However, ‘The Hangman’ wasn’t content with just one bout that happened half a decade ago. He took to X and asked for a fight against Porier. He wrote, “Rematch.” with hopes of getting a fight the world would remember.

However, the Cajun mixed martial artist was not in the mood for it. He responded with, “You Don’t really want that @danthehangman.” After all, Poirier has already established his strength against Hooker once before. Following the defeat at the hands of Islam Makhachev, at UFC 302, Poirier announced his apparent retirement from the world of MMA. However, there was still a possibility of his return. Nevertheless, the lightweight made it pretty clear that he wasn’t interested in fighting Hooker. 

And that brings us to the end of today’s episode of MMA News Roundup. What did you make of Conor McGregor’s behavior at Wembley Stadium? What would happen if Strickland and Pereira fought each other once again? Do you wish to see Poirier fight Hooker? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.