Conor McGregor’s frantic phone calls with UFC to rescue Dustin Poirier fight

Conor McGregor's trilogy fight with Dustin Poirier was almost cancelled before it was even announced last week.

The lightweight contenders will clash on July 10 in Las Vegas to settle their rivalry following Poirier's stoppage win in January's rematch.

But a furious row erupted on social media over McGregor's failure to pay a promised $500,000 donation to Poirier's charity threatened to detail the fight.

Poirier publicly called out McGregor who hit back, claiming he had not paid because he was waiting to be told how the money would be spent.

He went as far as to say he was looking for another opponent for his summer return.

But within 48 hours the fight had been officially announced and will take place in front of 20,000 fans at the T-Mobile Arena.

UFC president Dana White, however, revealed he feared the fight would be cancelled.

"There was a lot of chance that was going to fall apart," he told TSN. "I saw some conspiracy theorists saying that was done to promote the fight – absolutely none of that was done to promote the fight, I can assure you of that.

"We had to go back and forth; we've been doing this for 20 years and this is what we do, we get it done."

McGregor only signed his contract last Wednesday, hours before the UFC confirmed the fight would take place.

Poirier had agreed term two weeks previously having opted for the trilogy fight over a shot at the vacant 155lb title.

The belt will instead be on the line on May 15 when Michael Chandler takes on Charles Oliveira.

The winners of both fights are then expected to meet later in the year.

Meanwhile, McGregor was embroiled in another social media row earlier this week when he claimed the UFC should talk to him about patenting his gloves for use in fights.

Rival Justin Gaethje hit back, saying: "You didn’t design this you just put your name on someone else’s designs, made for as cheap as possible with s*** foam and shit materials. They are garbage and you know it. Make your cheese though."

McGregor retorted: "I’d smoke you and your coach at the same time in these patented McGregor Fast fight gloves."

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