Dustin Poirier just can’t help himself.
The former interim UFC lightweight champion loves “jumpin’ the gilly” anytime the opportunity presents itself. That was never more present than during his clash with Benoit Saint-Denis at UFC 299 in March. ‘The Diamond’ made multiple attempts to choke out the Frenchman with his favorite maneuver despite being explicitly told not to by head coach Mike Brown.
Following the first round of his scrap with Saint-Denis, Brown was caught on camera telling Poirier to stop with the guillotines. As it turns out, there was more to the conversation that the cameras missed.
“They actually didn’t play it in between the rounds, after the first round I said, ‘No more guillotines,’ and then they switched to the other corner,” Brown told MMA Fighting. “But right after I said that, Dustin said, ‘No, but I can hit it! I can hit it!’ I just replied, ‘You crazy bastard.’
“I literally said that and then he went and jumped another one. They didn’t play that part, but there was more words said after I said don’t jump the guillotine.”
Dustin Poirier ultimately won the fight with a spectacular second-round comeback KO.
‘The Diamond’ has never actually finished one of his opponents inside the Octagon with a guillotine, but he’s done it plenty of times at the gym according to Brown.
“He puts a lot of guys to sleep in the gym, to be honest,” Brown said. “He does have a very good one. He just hasn’t hit them in the fight.”
Dustin Poirier has nothing left to prove
Dustin Poirier’s undeniable love for guillotines has taken on a life of its own following the Saint-Denis fight, but this is far from the first time that Brown has been left frustrated by the lightweight’s love for the move.
“The fight where I was losing my mind is the fight with [Dan] Hooker,” Brown said. “Because he had lost the first two rounds and then he was battling back and then he was jumping guillotine in those later rounds, and had he got stuck on bottom in any one of those rounds, he would have lost the third round and wouldn’t have won the decision.
“But somehow he wouldn’t hit the guillotine, but he would somehow scramble to get back to his feet and start dropping bombs on him and doing damage, and then somehow stealing the round anyway. He would somehow find a way to make it work. He made us sweat and bite our nails in that one, that’s for sure.”
Three months removed from his return to the win column against Saint-Denis, Poirier will step into the main event spotlight at UFC 302 on Saturday, June 1. There, he will square off with reigning lightweight world champion Islam Makhachev in what will likely be his last crack at UFC gold.
Poirier previously challenged Makhachev’s mentor, Khabib Nurmagomedov, five years ago at UFC 242. ‘The Diamond’ went for a guillotine and had fans on the edge of their seat, believing he could hand the Dagestani the first loss of his mixed martial arts career.
Instead, ‘The Eagle’ escaped and used his position on top to reign down a flurry of strikes before securing a rear-naked choke in round three.
If he can pull off the guillotine against Nurmagomedov’s protege in The Garden State next month, it would be nothing short of poetic.
“It absolutely could happen,” Brown said. “He’s done so much in the sport. I almost feel like he doesn’t have anything more to prove, but this is the one box he has to check. I feel like he’s a champion even though he hasn’t won a title, a true UFC title. He’s won the interim. I feel like he’s a champion in my eyes.”
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