‘Illegitimate win’ - McGregor issues first statements after leg surgery

Conor McGregor says he would’ve won the second round.

After losing the fight to Dustin Poirier at UFC 264, Conor McGregor underwent surgery for his badly broken leg. TMZ reports that it was a “successful 3.5-hour surgery in Los Angeles, where doctors inserted a rod in his tibia and his fibula was fixed with plates and screws.”

The former two-division UFC champion released a video statement after the procedure.

“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, then we begin to build back,” McGregor said.

Immediately after the fight, McGregor claimed that he was winning the bout before the injury, saying he was “boxing the bleeding head off of him.” Despite the fact that he was out-landed statistically and two judges scored it a 10-8 for Poirier, McGregor still stuck to his guns. He called it an “illegitimate win” on his latest video, and claimed that he would’ve won the second round if it wasn’t for the injury.

“It was a hell of a first round. It would’ve been nice to get into that second round to see what’s what. But it is what it is, that’s the nature of the business. A clean break of the tibia and it was not to be,” he said. “Dustin, you can celebrate that illegitimate win all you want, but you’ve done nothing in there. That second round would’ve shown all.”

With the loss at UFC 264, McGregor has now lost three of his last four bouts, all ending by stoppage.