B/R Exclusive: Dustin Poirier Fights On Despite the Doubters

Dustin Poirier, by any measure, is doing well for himself.

He's respected among his peers. He's got a happy family. He's succeeded with outside business interests. And he's got enough money to live comfortably for a long, long time.

But he's not content. At least not in a competitive sense.

Even after a 15-year MMA career and 30 fights in the UFC—including a victory total (22) that's tied for fourth on the promotion's all-time list—the 35-year-old's primal fire still burns.

Never was that clearer than Saturday night in Miami.

Matched with streaking lightweight contender Benoît Saint Denis in the co-main event at the Kaseya Center, Poirier headed back to his stool after a first round in which he was struck 53 times and taken down twice while fending off a submission try and being controlled for better than three minutes.

The one-way traffic continued into the second round as Saint Denis, a military veteran in his native France, chased a sixth straight octagonal finish with another takedown and a dozen more strikes.

The Louisiana-cut "Diamond" wasn't having it, though.

Rather than succumbing to the "God of War" and losing consecutive fights for the first time, Poirier produced a stirring rally with a series of punches that left his rival in a semi-conscious heap and prompted effusive post-fight praise from UFC czar and longtime Poirier cheerleader Dana White.

"This is the s--t that makes you a f--king legend," White said. "These are legendary fights when you go in and face a guy who is a savage and it looks like you can't win this fight, and people think you can't win this fight, and then you go in and do it spectacularly the way that he did."

The sudden, violent drama upped the in-house din to rafter-shaking levels.

But rather than scaling a fence or somersaulting across the mat in the aftermath, Poirier simply turned and walked to his corner, calmly acknowledged cheers from supporters at cageside and pivoted back to Saint-Denis to check on his condition and congratulate him on the effort.

Such restraint would be tough for an image-focused performer.

Not for a fighter. Which, decades after taking it on, is a label Poirier still wears proudly.

"Fighting was always something I did because I loved it," he told Bleacher Report.

"And then it turned into a vehicle to get me and my family to a place where we needed to be in life. When all the media, all this stuff goes away, I still love fighting. I still love the one-on-one competition, the purity of it. And testing myself and putting myself in those uncomfortable situations.

"This stuff is uncomfortable, no matter what people say and try to dress it up and make it cool. This is scary and it's a roller coaster, and I'm addicted to that. Maybe I'm an adrenaline junkie."

And still a formidable one, to be sure.

Poirier eyes brimmed with intensity and the skin was pulled tautly over his cheeks as he stared across the cage toward Saint Denis during Bruce Buffer's introductions, and the steely resolve never left over seven-plus minutes of combat. It was still there an hour later as he strode into a packed media room, wearing a baseball cap with a brim that showed his one-word approach to his occupation: War.

"I don't have to fight. I can never fight again and me and my family are set," he said. "I've done well in my career and then I have a lot of things outside. I'm good. I'm fighting because I love to fight. And I feel like that makes me dangerous."

Dangerous, yes.

And ambitious, too, because there's still work to be done.

Saturday's win was particularly important given the transient state of the upper echelon in the lightweight division, whose champion, Islam Makhachev, has defended twice against since-deposed featherweight titleholder Alex Volkanovski but not against a full-timer at 155 pounds.

Top contender Charles Oliveira and No. 2 man Justin Gaethje are on the bill in separate fights at next month's UFC 300 show. Then-champ Oliveira choked Poirier out in the main event at UFC 269 in Las Vegas, and Poirier and Gaethje have traded KOs in a two-bout series that began six years ago.

Return bouts with either remain possible as auditions for a shot at Makhachev. And if either or both former foes lose in April—Oliveira meets No. 4 contender Arman Tsarukyan while Gaethje takes on rising ex-featherweight champ Max Holloway—the needle could point immediately toward Poirier.

It's the biggest competitive carrot still dangling for an O.G. who's had 12 main events, earned 14 performance bonuses and had a brief run as an interim champion, but left the cage frustrated after a failed try for Khabib Nurmagomedov's undisputed gold in 2019 and was upset by Oliveira two years later.

"This ain't good for you. What we do. And I've been doing it for a long time, 17 years nonstop," he said. "I was 18 years old, and I said I wouldn't fight past 35. I know I didn't even know what 35 was. I didn't know anything about being 35. I just thought 35 is halfway. I'll have a whole other life after this. But then you turn 35, and you're like, 'Oh, s--t! It's here and I'm still doing this.'

"That's the only reason I'm fighting, and why I started fighting, to be the world champion. To be the best in the world. Undisputed. I've done a lot and I've checked a lot of boxes, but there's one that's still unchecked and that's to be a world champion."