After two impressive wins in the promotion 'Irish' Joseph Duffy is set to headline his first UFC event in Dublin, Ireland. He is set to face Dustin Poirier, but with his 2010 submission win over Conor McGregor, he has routinely been linked to his fellow Irish fighter.
It doesn't help either that McGregor keeps slinging verbal taunts at him, calling him a 'journeyman', or 'Canadian Joe' for leaving Ireland to train at Tristar.
The contrastingly soft spoken fighter in Duffy has mostly let things slide as he's not one to talk smack, but he was asked about this during a recent appearance at the MMA Hour.
"Nothing Conor says can get under my skin" Duffy said. "If it was somebody who I cared about, like my family, saying this, yeah maybe. But Conor's opinion doesn't matter to me. He can say what he wants, and it doesn't change the way I would fight him. It doesn't change the fact that I think I would still beat him. None of that stuff changes. None of that will ever get under my skin."
As for how a potential rematch would play out, Duffy says it won't be too different from their first bout that lasted 38 seconds.
"I believe I can take Conor out just as quickly," he said. "Everyone notices Conor has greatly improved, but so am I. Everything Conor does, I feel I can beat him at. He uses more kicks, I've been doing taekwondo since I was five. There's not an area I feel he can beat me."
When asked if he plans to call out McGregor if he wins on October 24th, Duffy kept it simple.
"We'll just have to see what happens. We'll see how things go and how I feel, and we'll go from there. I'll guess I'll leave people in suspense for that."