How UFC 257 Showed Us Nothing New About Dustin Poirier

               There are few things that are more irritating in the sports world than the “I told you so” fan. I heard an interesting quote Chael Sonnen used to describe these types of spectators in which he said you didn’t tell anybody anything unless you were willing to put your money where your mouth is. Moreover, he said in the mixed martial arts industry particularly that unless you were willing to part with your money that you didn’t tell anybody anything, rather you were just talking and no one was listening. In its original context, this quote was used to describe the influx of people who claimed to have predicted that Dustin Poirier would knock out Conor McGregor in their UFC 257 headlining bout. Admittedly, I went 0-3 that night betting on Jessica Eye to beat JoJo Calderwood, Dan Hooker to finish Michael Chandler, and worst of all I bet on Conor to finish Dustin in the 3^rd round of that fight. While I could sit here and try to defend those decisions, the money’s already lost so what’s the point in crying over spilt milk, right? That being said, myself amongst other people owe Dustin Poirier an apology because UFC 257 didn’t show us anything we didn’t know about him as a fighter.

First things first, in one of the promotionals leading up to the fight, Dustin flat out said he knew he could scrap and for whatever reason we refused to believe him. This was clearly evident in the fight because although McGregor ended up losing, I scored the first round 10-9 in favor of Conor and he did land some shots. However, despite being in positions to take damage Poirier never deserted his game plan and always had an answer for whatever Conor was going to throw at him. Additionally, we never mention the name Poirier in the conversation with fighters like GSP and Khabib who weaponize pace and I’m not even arguing that we should, however we owe Dustin the credit he’s due for refusing to give Conor ground in that fight. Again, it was clear Poirier showed up to scrap, and not that McGregor didn’t, but Dustin was very confident in his ability to back down McGregor and his ability to exchange shots with him in positions that neither of them were willing to back down from.

Furthermore, while I’m framing this conversation in the lens of UFC 257 and this specific fight between McGregor and Poirier, Dustin didn’t do anything in this fight that was unexpected and uncharacteristic of him. Take for example his last fight with Dan Hooker. Poirier V. Hooker was a fight of the year candidate in 2020 and the second round of that fight was probably the best fought round of 2020. In that fight, however, Poirier showed his true colors as a fighter by having his face bloodied and still managing to go to decision and win, despite the damage. I think the biggest thing that could’ve been taken from that fight that was largely overlooked was Dustin’s chin and his ability to take big shots from Hooker and still return fire. The only reason I bring this to your attention is because Dustin’s chin was a big factor in the McGregor fight.

Although Conor’s mental toughness is usually something to be praised, and even can be in this fight after you look at the way Dustin damaged his leg and he continued to try to fight through it until the knock out, I believe that Dustin’s chin and his ability to absorb some of his shots mentally broke McGregor. The analogy I find appropriate is that Conor looked surprised, like Justin Gaethje did in his title fight against Khabib, that his shots weren’t causing more damage and impacting Dustin more. Going into the fight, even the casual fans of the sport, like my mom who regularly referred to McGregor by the first name Ewan as in Obi One Kenobi in the horrible Star Wars prequel trilogy, knew about the power Conor had, particularly in his left hand, and in the fight Conor landed some big left hands. Specifically, in the second round there was an exchange where Dustin was moving forward and Conor was giving ground and countered with a left hand very similar to the one he used to put out Jose Aldo in 2015. He connected with the left and in the fight you can almost see a look on his face of “how are you still standing?” So, all in all, while this fight clears up some questions, like Poirier being next Iine to compete for the lightweight title, it also created many questions like where does the UFC go with Conor from here. Regardless, in a world that constantly sees so much changing, after UFC 257 I think it’s fair to say that one thing in this industry is consistent and that is that Dustin Poirier, win or lose, will show up to scrap no matter who’s across from him in the octagon.