Poirier To White: Stop Playing Games, Send Contract!

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

Over the weekend, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White suggested that all signs pointed to a rematch between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier being “done,” though his answer to the question didn’t seem to be 100-percent affirmative.

According to one half of that headlining bout, Dustin Poirier, the fight — which is targeted to go down on Jan. 23, 2021 — is far from a done deal, posting on Twitter that UFC’s lead man needs to stop “playing games” and send him the right contract.

While details as to what the “right contract” is, it seems negotiations between UFC and Poirier could once again be at a standstill. If you recall, the major reason a fight between “Diamond” and Tony Ferguson didn’t happen at UFC 254 a few weeks ago was a direct result of failed negotiations. According to White, Poirier “negotiated himself out of the fight,” indicating that perhaps his former interim Lightweight champion didn’t really want to scrap.

Poirier hasn’t competed since taking out Dan Hooker in an epic- five-round war at UFC Vegas 4 this past June (see it again here), which once again earned “Diamond” a $50,000 post-fight bonus.

The proposed rematch against McGregor was first in talks to go down at Welterweight, a move that didn’t sit too well with White. But after current Lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov retired from the fight game after submitting Justin Gaethje, the landscape changed entirely.

And while White recently stated that he wouldn’t vacate the 155-pound strap due to the possibility of “The Eagle” flying back to the Octagon for one more fight, it would still behoove McGregor and Poirier to tango a Lightweight in order to insure themselves some bargaining power when the time does come to stage another title fight in the division.

For now, let’s just hope UFC and Poirier reach an agreement within the next month.