Conor McGregor says he'll fight Dustin Poirier at UFC 178 – if Poirier will do it

DUBLIN – Done, done, on to the next one for Conor McGregor.

After he took out Diego Brandao on Saturday in his home city of Dublin at UFC Fight Night 46, McGregor was quickly called out by Dustin Poirier, who hopes to fight him at UFC 178 in September.

It’s an invitation McGregor said he’d gladly accept.

UFC 178 takes place Sept. 27 in Las Vegas on pay-per-view, though a venue has not yet been announced.

McGregor (15-2 MMA, 3-0 UFC) stopped Brandao (18-10 MMA, 4-3 UFC) with a first-round TKO, mostly dominating the “TUF 14? winner with his striking game at The O2 in Dublin.

The win came after plenty of hype around the Irish featherweight, who had been off for 11 months following a knee injury suffered in his second UFC fight. But McGregor backed up the big talk in a big way.

Now he’ll have a target on his back as he continues to say he’s had visions of being a UFC featherweight champion before the year’s out. And while UFC President Dana White doesn’t believe that’s a likely time table, he may be willing to give McGregor a fight in Las Vegas.

White said McGregor’s next fight likely will be in Las Vegas, and that the UFC won’t keep him on his home continent of Europe. But he wouldn’t commit to an opponent, even though McGregor said he’d gladly take a fight with Poirier – especially considering Poirier is an American Top Team teammate of Cole Miller, who pulled out of his UFC Fight Night 46 booking against McGregor with an injury.

McGregor implied that Miller’s teammates had the chance to fight him on Saturday, but didn’t step up, so Brandao did.

“That would be perfect for me,” McGregor said. “His teammate Cole Miller, he pulled out. You’re trying to tell me that Dustin Poirier, Nik Lentz, both top 10 guys, no fights scheduled, didn’t know about Cole’s injury? They would’ve known before the UFC would’ve known. And yet nothing. They didn’t campaign for this. This is a main-event slot. It’s a big, big event. And yet there wasn’t a peep out of both of them.

“So I know he doesn’t want that fight. He can pretend that he wants the fight and send out tweets and this and that. Let’s do it. One by one, I’ll take every single one of them out.”

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 46, check out the UFC Events section of the site.