Earlier this month, Dustin Poirier misplaced to Islam Makhachev in the primary occasion of UFC 302, falling brief in his third bid to assert undisputed light-weight gold. It was a grueling struggle, one which left Poirier with a damaged nostril, damaged rib, and torn ACL. However whereas the end result was unlucky, it wasn’t all dangerous: At the very least he obtained a cool image from it.
Talking on The MMA Hour, Poirier talked about his expertise at UFC 302 and the now iconic photograph from his struggle, displaying a battered Poirier leaking blood as he continues to struggle on. It’s a photograph Poirier loves.
Picture by Luke Hales/Getty Pictures
“After I see the photograph, it doesn’t simply seize a second, it captures a sense I felt in that second strolling in direction of him,” Poirier mentioned. “Considered one of us goes down. Feeling like, ‘I’m leaving all of it out right here proper now, that is every part I’ve.’ That feeling is one thing particular and that image brings me to that place.”
And that place is maybe a extra harrowing one than MMA followers even realized. Poirier revealed that he broke his nostril throughout the struggle resulting from an inadvertent conflict of heads, however the rib harm was truly one thing that occurred throughout coaching camp, and doubtlessly jeopardized the struggle from taking place within the first place.
“I busted my ribs in camp, however in fact I don’t need to speak about that,” Poirier mentioned. “I don’t assume it modified something or the best way that I fought. However yeah, I smashed my ribs up dangerous.
“My spouse wished me to [pull out] however I wasn’t going to. … It was too shut. I used to be already midway thought camp. I used to be like, ‘I’m preventing for the belt.’ I used to be midway by coaching camp and I’m preventing for the light-weight title, I wasn’t pulling out.”
When requested in regards to the rib harm, Poirier insisted that it performed no half within the struggle, saying that whereas he feels it now, he solely felt it as soon as throughout the bout.
“The one time I felt them in the entire struggle was possibly within the third spherical, each time he had a physique triangle, near my nook, and he tried to mount me with the physique triangle,” Poirier mentioned. “He was making an attempt to mount whereas he nonetheless had the lock and all of the stress form of twisted my physique. That’s the one time I actually needed to defend myself on intuition as a result of I felt the ribs hurting. However aside from that, no drawback.”
The issue, Poirier insists, was with Makhachev himself. Poirier says the highest pound-for-pound fighter on the earth was just too good. That, not the myriad accidents, is why Poirier didn’t get his hand raised.
“I knew it was going to be a tricky struggle,” Poirier mentioned. “These fashion of fights are the hardest for me, guys who’re going to chain wrestle and preserve the struggle slower. I do higher in a brawl. And even any person who’s going to alternate and plant their ft and throw punches with me, that’s the place I discover methods to win. This was a tricky struggle to attempt to make the most of openings when he’s on the again foot and I’m form of chasing. It was only a robust fashion for me.
“However he was every part I assumed he was going to be. He’s the champ. I knew he was robust. I knew he was going to be robust, I knew he had grit. You don’t get within the place he’s in by not having all of these issues. It’s a must to have every part, and it was precisely what I assumed it was going to be.”
