Dustin Poirier will fight former WSOF champion Justin Gaethje at the upcoming UFC on FOX 29 event.
Poirier initially wanted a rematch with former lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez, who happened to be the first man to beat Gaethje at UFC 218. However, that bout wasn’t made.
Gaethje debuted against Michael Johnson, and TKO’d him in a crazy war of attrition. His subsequent loss to Alvarez leads us to the matchup with Poirier.
Poirier has been on a roll since making a weight class change. He most recently finished former champion Anthony Pettis to put him back into title contention after a knockout loss to Michael Johnson and a controversial no contest against Alvarez at last May’s UFC 211.
With the way that these two fighters compete in the Octagon, everyone is expecting a wild brawl once they step into the cage and duke it out.
While doing promotion for this upcoming fight, Poirier explained that Gaethje must change his style or else he’ll have a short MMA career.
“Justin is a fighter’s fighter,” Poirier recently told MMA Fighting. “People like to watch him fight. He’s a little bit of a brute. He out-toughs guys and you know that he’s a guy who doesn’t break mentally. You have to break his body. You have to short-circuit him. You have to make his body stop working. He has a never-die attitude and I respect that about him, and I know what he’s bringing to the table. I know how dangerous he is, the power he brings and the grit he brings to the fight.
“I’m not looking to go out there and get damaged and have a bloodbath, but I’m a fighter deep down inside. So no matter how much I try to tame that beast, when the going gets tough, it comes out. I’m glad I have that because it’s gotten me far.
“But this is going to be the bull versus the matador and I’m going to finesse him out there. I’m going to show my full skill set, my speed, my accuracy, everything I’ve been working on for 11 years. I’m going to show, once again, that I’m going to be the best in the world.”
UFC on FOX 29 is set to take place on Saturday, April 14, 2018, at the Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
The main card will air on FOX Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET while the preliminary card will be split broadcasted on FOX Sports 1 at 6 p.m. ET and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass, at 3:30 p.m. ET.
“It’s not (a sustainable style), and I said that when he was with World Series of Fighting,” Poirier said. “I’m good friends with (ATT coach) Mike Brown, who’s also an MMA mastermind. He understands fighting and understands styles and matchup, and I’ve told him that before, that this guy is going to have to switch his fighting style or he’s going to have a short career.
He’s going to have a bunch of fun paydays and a bunch of memorable fights, but it’s not going to last. Once it starts going downhill, it’s going to go down fast for him, fighting like that. Of course he’s going to catch guys here and there, win some bonuses, and like I said, have some great fights that people are going to remember. And it seems like that’s what he’s fighting for. He loves that, and that’s awesome.
“But I want to be a world champion, man. And I want that to be a byproduct of me fighting at my best. I’m not going out there looking to see who’s willing to lose more blood, because I’ll die out there. I know I would, but I don’t want that. I want to go in there and have smooth fight and show my skill.”
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