Why calf kicks were key in Conor crushing

Mixed martial arts continues to evolve, and the importance of calf kicks reached a crescendo in the main event of UFC 257, as Dustin Poirier used the technique to defeat Conor McGregor. After the fight, Poirier explained to ESPN’s Brett Okamoto that his coach Mike Brown devised the winning strategy.

Mike Brown wanted me to rip calf kicks, Rip ‘em rip ‘em rip ‘em, said Poirier. And we did. The first one I threw landed. I’ve been kicking long enough and when you land with the top of your shin, the thick part of your shin, right under your knee, and you turn it the right way it’s so heavy and it hurts so bad. Especially on the calf. And the first one I landed, I knew I had him good.

I kick hard and Conor’s a wide stance, we thought it’d be hard to check. And I started kicking through his check because he wasn’t checking correctly, it was still the muscle part of his calf. He wasn’t turning his shin all the way outward so it wasn’t shin to shin. Even when he checked, he was getting the bad part of those kicks.

I know from experience, I’ve been crippled with those from Jim Miller. I’ve been hurt with them a few times. The swelling in your calf, it has nowhere to go. It’s not like the thigh where it can spread out all over. That’s where you get compartment syndrome, the swelling gets stuck in pockets and it’s so painful.

At one point, Poirier asked his coach why he believed calf kicks would be such a key vs. Conor.

He kicks hard as f***, explained Brown.

And Poirier explained the difference between their first fight in 2014 and Saturday night.

I felt his presence less, his aura less, said Poirier. I just saw another fighter tonight. I think the first fight, I was kind of a deer in the headlights, you could say. This time I was just fighting another man. Another man that bleeds just like me. And I knew that.