Poirier may ‘never fight at 155’ again after UFC 269, angles Diaz bout

Nearly a week away from UFC 269, a visibly distraught Dustin Poirier gives an update on his fighting future.

UFC 269 was a forgettable night for Dustin Poirier, to say the least. For the second time in his noteworthy career, the 32-year-old Lafayette native failed at his bid to a UFC world title by losing in the exact same manner.

Now nearly a week off that night, “The Diamond” remains visibly distraught, and understandably so. But he still appeared on a recent episode of The MMA Hour to share some of his post-fight thoughts.

“Losing sucks, especially title fights. When everything felt good, had a great camp, great weight cut. Losing always sucks, but I feel like maybe underperforming hurts worse than a loss,” Poirier told Ariel Helwani.

“The second round, trying to get a stand up instead of maybe attacking with my jiu-jitsu and trying to create space. Going into this fight, I thought if I was put in a bad position, I was gonna hold it out and take over in the later rounds, was my mindset.

“Obviously, Herb wasn’t gonna stand us up and I just held on, kept holding on. Should’ve created space. I don’t know. Hindsight is always 20/20. There’s a lot of stuff I can say and look back on. I’m not sure, I’m just so much better than that.”

After going 0-2 in undisputed title fights, Poirier is now unsure if he’ll ever get the opportunity again. That has made him rethink about possibly moving up in weight.

“Everybody says that when they lose, but I know I am. It just sucks, man,” he said. “‘Cause, it’s one of those things, like, (I’ll) maybe never get the opportunity again to call myself world champion. And to underperform…

“I owed it to myself. This one was for me. It wasn’t for the money, it wasn’t for proving anything. It was for me. F—ng fumbled, man. It hurts.

“I don’t know if I wanna make that cut again. I might never fight at 155 pounds again. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I don’t know the future.”

While he did say it was a “smooth” weight cut, Poirier isn’t willing to go through the same wringer.

“I could’ve cut a few more pounds. I could’ve come in at 152 in this fight. My cut went so smooth, I felt great. Of course, that’s because I did all the things I was supposed to do in training camp that made the cut so great.

“But I don’t know if I wanna go through that kind of training camp again, where I’m hungry every day and competing in the gym and pushing myself on low calories. We’ll see. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s gonna happen.”

So what could be next for Dustin Poirier? His most recent Twitter banter with a UFC superstar could give us a clue.

Poirier and Diaz were scheduled to fight at UFC 230 in 2018. The fight was subsequently scrapped after Poirier pulled out due to an injury.