Dustin Poirier’s final fight has been decided.
After fighting professionally for over a decade, “The Diamond” is finally hanging up his gloves at UFC 318. Dustin has officially confirmed that he’ll fight former UFC Featherweight Champion and current BMF title holder Max Holloway at the July 19th pay-per-view in New Orleans.
“It’s going to be my final fight,” Poirier said. “I’m going to lay my gloves down in Louisiana where it all started for me. The whole journey started there, and I’m just honored the UFC was on the same page, the state of Louisiana was on the same page to make all of this work. ...
“July 19, me and Max Holloway are going to fight, five rounds, main event, pay-per-view for his BMF title.”
Holloway won the BMF belt at UFC 300 by beating Justin Gaethje via knockout in the last five seconds of round five. But this isn’t the first time that Holloway has fought Poirier. In fact, the 33-year-old has fought Poirier twice in his career and Holloway has lost both times.
So it may be a surprise that Poirier has opted to fight Holloway again. Granted, Holloway is one of the best fighters of the modern generation, but Dustin originally wanted to test the waters with either a final fight against Gaethje (they are 1 - 1 a piece) or the undefeated Ilia Topuria.
Well, I wanted [Justin] Gaethje," Poirier said. "I was asking the UFC for Gaethje because we’re one and one. I wanted to close out that trilogy," Poirier added, detailing how his subsequent negotiations played out. For some reason, they really wanted this fight with Max. So I said, ‘Okay, that's cool because I respect the guy.'"
When questioned by MMA Junkie about the rumors of a Topuria fight, Poirer was definitely interested, but that decision wasn’t up to him as the UFC brass just didn’t have interest in that fight.
“Not once. Not once," Poirier said about a fight with Topuria being in the works. "Actually, when he said he was going to 155 [lbs], I texted UFC and said, 'Hey, what's up? Let me know what's going on with this guy now he's at 55.'
"But they never entertained it. They told me it's not happening, and they wanted Max...like I said, this was blindsided.
Sucks that Poirier isn’t really getting the fight that he wants, but Holloway vs. Poirier III should still be a banger.