UFC star Dustin Poirier shows of gruesome ‘kankle’ injury after kicking lumps out of Dan Hooker in brutal fight

DUSTIN POIRIER showed off his severely swollen and bruised ankle following his five round thriller against Dan Hooker.

The lightweight contender came from two rounds down to secure a narrow points win at the UFC’s Apex Center in Las Vegas.

Both headliners were sent to hospital after their fight of the year contender, and Poirier revealed the damage of his lethal leg kicks.

Posting a picture of his ankle on Twitter, he captioned the tweet: “Kankle.”

Fans online used the picture to mock Poirier’s ex-opponent Conor McGregor, who last year put his 2018 loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov down to his foot being a “balloon” following an injury.

One said: “MY FOOT WAS A BALOON.”

Another said: “Your foot was a balloon.”

Since Poirier was knocked out by McGregor at featherweight in 2014, he has won 10 of his last 13 bouts, including an interim lightweight belt.

The 31-year-old admitted his loss to the Irishman in turn rejuvenated him and inspired his winning run.

Poirier told ESPN: “It definitely started happening after the Conor McGregor loss.

“That was the start of it and it’s been a long process. And then being a father and losing again. Winning some and losing again and winning another one.

“It’s a long evolution of stop caring so much. You stop caring about the noise and the stuff that doesn’t matter.

“A lot of time in my younger career I felt that it was life or death.

“Every comment on Instagram, on Twitter, every journalist who said something, I felt like everybody was against me. I felt like if I lost I would be written off. It’s the end of my career. I’m a bum if I lose this fight.

“And then you lose a few times you still realize s*** can still put this back together.”