Bellator middleweight champion and teammate of Dustin Poirier discusses the ‘The Diamonds’ recent contractual issues.
Fans were thrilled, if not a little surprised when the UFC announced that they had made a fight between No.3 Dustin Poirier and No.11 Benoit Saint Dennis. Poirier is a future hall of famer and was potentially expected to take a higher profile fight, rather than taking on the dangerous Frenchman who has had just six UFC fights.
However, the mouth-watering affair was temporarily off after Poirier had tweeted that the fight was off and in fact was never officially signed in the first place. And just a short time later Poirier announced that it was just a ‘misunderstanding’ and everything seemed to be resolved.
Dustin Poirier’s teammate delves into UFC 299 fall out
Teammate of Poirier, Eblen spoke with SHAK MMA and discussed the situation, revealing the UFC did not meet Poirier’s terms despite the American agreeing to the idea of the fight.
“I know Dustin pretty well, and I actually spoke with him about it today,” Johnny Eblen began. “They just didn’t come to terms, man. The things that Dustin laid out for them that they need to provide for this fight they were not willing to do it.”
“I just think it’s kind of horse s*** because I know how much money the UFC makes and they could make that fight happen but they’re choosing not to because they’re being stingy in a way. The fact that no contract was signed and they were willing to f****** announce it is f****** beyond me, man. That’s never happened to me. Not even a verbal agreement, Dustin said.
“Dustin said, ‘Yeah, that sounds good, but like, we gotta get this deal worked out. That’s not a verbal agreement, Eblen continued. A verbal agreement’s like, ‘Hey, if you do this, this, and this, I’m in,’ and they’re like, ‘Okay, we’ll do this, this, and this.’ Okay, cool, I’ll fight him. Then you do the contract and you sign the contract. There wasn’t even a verbal agreement on his end. It’s kind of crazy to me that they were willing to even promote it to this degree and then let it backfire like this.”
Who wins, Dustin Poirier or Benoit Saint-Denis?