First, Dustin Poirier was fighting at UFC 299. Then he wasn’t. Now he is. It’s been a busy Thursday afternoon for ‘The Diamond’ on social media.
Last month, Dana White announced that Poirier would square off with rising lightweight contender Benoit Saint-Denis on March 9 when the promotion returns to Miami one month before its massive landmark event in Las Vegas. Fight fans were genuinely amped up for the scrap as it represented a fresh matchup in a division that has seen the top fighters round-robin each other for the last few years. However, disaster seemingly struck when Poirier took to social media writing, “My fights off but still working.”
Ariel Helwani, host of The MMA Hour, reportedly spoke to Poirier who revealed that “there was no contractual agreement before the fight was announced and we couldn’t come to terms.”
The immediate question that arose was, why is the UFC announcing fights they have yet to sign? Truth be told, it is a fairly common practice within the promotion, but it appears that in this instance, it came back to bite them on the a**.
As the events continued to unfold, Dana White saw another opportunity to slam the MMA media by accusing outlets of producing clickbait despite the fact that Poirier himself was the one who revealed that the fight was off. He also shared a conversation with Saint-Denis’ fight team confirming details of the bout.
Saint-Denis’ acceptance of the fight was never in question, so why White chose to share this particular screenshot is nothing short of baffling.
Dustin Poirier Reverses Stance, Says Fight with Saint-Denis is Back On After ‘Misunderstanding’ with his manager
In yet another twist to the story, Dustin Poirier reversed his position shortly after announcing that the fight was off.
“Sorry folks, I jumped the gun, I couldn’t get a hold of my manager for a few days,” Poirier wrote on X. “I just spoke with him and Hunter. Misunderstanding on my part. Fight is on! See you March 9th Miami!!!”
It didn’t take long for everyone to read between the lines and see that Poirier was simply “playing the game” by going public to get the deal that he wanted out of the stingy UFC back office.
“Dustin finally going public got him what he wanted,” Helwani reported on social media. “That’s the biz. Good on him. Doesn’t change the fact that up until an hour ago he didn’t agree – remember he broke this story, no one else – and when this was announced almost a month ago he hadn’t agreed. No one is denying that BSD agreed, which his team has confirmed.”
So it appears that all of this was nothing more than a game of cat and mouse between Poirier and the promotion with the MMA media being used as bait.
Well played, Mr. Poirier. Well played.