“All I need is one mistake or one opportunity, and I’m going to take full advantage of it, and I can finish the fight again.”
Dustin Poirier is a dangerous man.
He is the only fighter to have stopped reigning featherweight champion Max Holloway in the Octagon, and ‘The Diamond’ believes he can do it again when he faces ‘Blessed’ for the interim lightweight championship at UFC 236.
Speaking to MMAjunkie Radio ahead of next month’s highly anticipated PPV, Poirier, who submitted Holloway with a mounted triangle armbar back in 2012, said all it takes is for Holloway to make one mistake for him to capitalize with the perfect fight-finishing sequence.
“He seems really well-rounded, honestly, but I have a lot of belief in myself and my ability to make things happen in combat and in the fight,” Poirier said. “All I need is one – one mistake – for him to dip his head the wrong way or to grab me the wrong way or to get up off the ground the wrong way or take a shot. I can finish the fight anywhere.
“I feel like I’m very well-balanced and there’s not a place the fight can go that I don’t have an answer to something he’s doing. All I need is one mistake or one opportunity, and I’m going to take full advantage of it, and I can finish the fight again.”
Poirier is on a three-fight win streak against three former champions — Eddie Alvarez (Bellator and UFC), Anthony Pettis (WEC and UFC), and Justin Gaethje (WSOF) — and believes it’s his time to shine at UFC 236.
“It’s going to be an incredible fight,” he said. “I’m going to leave it all out there, and I’m coming home with gold. I just know it. I feel it in my bones.
“Tune in – it’s going to be great.”
UFC 236, which also features a co-headlining middleweight championship bout between Kelvin Gastelum and Israel Adesanya, takes place next month, April 13 at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia.