Dana White explains why Dustin Poirier turned down a potential fight against Tony Ferguson.
As previously reported, the expected lightweight match-up between the top contenders has been axed from UFC 254 as Poirier was not happy with the financial offer he received from UFC officials. Poirier has stated that he has no problem squaring off against the former UFC Interim Lightweight Champion, but he wants to be compensated for the big fight.
It’s not known how much “The Diamond” asked for during negotiations; however, according to Dana White, he feels that the former challenger for the lightweight title purposely priced himself out because he didn’t want to fight Tony Ferguson next month:
“Listen, I like Dustin,” White told reporters and MMA Junkie, at the DWCS 33 post-fight news conference on Tuesday. “I’m not going to sit up here and say anything negative about Dustin, he’s a great kid. I don’t know if it was he didn’t want to fight in Abu Dhabi or what his deal was – he didn’t want to fight.
“Listen, there’s a lot of different ways to turn down a fight. Negotiating yourself out of one is one of the ways you can do it. So for whatever reason, he didn’t want to take this fight. Only he knows that.”
It didn’t take long for Poirier to respond to White’s claims and denies negotiating himself out because he didn’t want the fight, “I do want that fight,” Poirier wrote via text message to MMA Junkie. “Simple and plain, I want to fight Tony. I like the matchup.”
While the match-up between Ferguson and Poirier is dead for now, White appears convinced that Ferguson will fight at UFC 254 as the UFC President confirmed that he has an opponent for the 36-year-old, “I told you we’ve got a fight,” White said. “I don’t see Tony not accepting the fight.”