Top lightweight contender Dustin Poirier saw the biggest potential fight of his career fall through when he pulled out of his scheduled UFC 230 main event versus Nate Diaz.
Poirier revealed he was dealing with an ongoing hip injury. Thankfully it didn’t require surgery. However, Poirier did receive stem cell injections for the ailment. He hopes to return to training soon.
But even when he does, he’s not exactly sure Diaz will agree to fight him again. While he pulled out of the huge fight, Poirier wanted his haters to know that the fight wasn’t a sure thing even if he was healthy. “The Diamond” spoke up on a recent episode of The MMA Hour to detail how often the fight’s status supposedly changed:
“We don’t even have enough time to talk about all the times it was changed. The fight was on, it was off, it was just crazy, there was a lot of crazy stuff going on.”
Diaz had a public spat going on with the UFC after he walked out of the UFC 229 announcement video. The fan favorite was up to his usual negotiating tricks, and that included lobbying for a 165-pound title fight with Poirier. But that was far from all that went on behind the scenes according to Poirier. In fact, it got so tangled that Poirier accepted the main event only to see Diaz turn it down:
“They wanted to switch it to five rounds, man, it was just so messed up dude. Nate was being hard to deal with, I believe. Every weight class they offered it at 155 and he wanted 160 and I agreed to that. He kind of negotiated himself out of a main-event spot. They offered us the main event, I accepted, Nate over-negotiated, they lost the main event, it was just back-to-back days of him trying to have his way, honestly.”
Haters Don’t Get It
So none of the possibilities came through for the huge fight. Then it ultimately fell apart due to Poirier’s injury anyway. But it wasn’t the huge payday everyone thought “The Diamond” was getting. For all his detractors on social media, Poirier wanted them to know he was never getting pay-per-view points. Overall, he took the fight for the recognition:
“A lot of these fans are blowing me up on social media saying you blew an opportunity, your big payday and stuff like that, they don’t understand how contracts work. I don’t get PPV points to fight Nate Diaz. I don’t know what anyone thinks is going on here, but, I took this fight not because it was a big-money fight, but because it was a big opportunity. It’s a huge headache with all the stuff that he was playing.”
Poirier’s recovery time seems to be a short one, leading to questions if his Diaz match will be re-booked. He’s not so sure it would have happened even if had stayed healthy due to all the head-spinning extra factors. If he can get the fight again, however, he’ll obviously take it:
“Like I said, so much stuff went on behind the scenes, even if everything went smooth, I’m not sure if this fight would have even went through with this guy. But if the UFC wants it, I’m down. If they can make it happen, I’m down.”
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