Dustin Poirier is Making Another Run for UFC Lightweight Gold

Sports Illustrated

In his 40th professional fight, future Hall of Famer Dustin Poirier will take on Benoit Saint-Denis in the co-main event of UFC 299.

Transcript

00:00 In the co-man event of UFC 299, former interim champion and number three ranked lightweight

00:05 Dustin Poirier will step into the octagon against Benoit Saint-Denis in Miami. I'm here with the

00:10 Diamond now. Let's jump right into this. Your fight with Saint-Denis was announced, then it was in

00:15 doubt, and then it was kind of confirmed again. There are some questions surrounding how this

00:19 fight got put together. Can you walk me through the process of how the fight did come together

00:23 and the initial questions surrounding it? We started talking about the fight a few months ago

00:30 they brought up his name. I was kind of surprised. I thought they were to bring up a higher rank guy

00:35 or maybe a former champion or a legend, something like that. You know, I was surprised, but at the

00:40 same time it's exciting for me because he's the kind of fighter, you know, he's finished his last

00:44 five opponents. He's the kind of fighters I want to be standing in front of. It's all action with

00:48 him. You know, he's a finisher. He leaves it all out there. He shows his grit and somebody gave me

00:54 my opportunity to crack into the top. You know, let's find out. I'm 35 years old now, man. This

00:59 guy's a young hungry lion. Let's find out if I still got it. Don't throw me in the fire. Can you

01:03 talk about how your camp was a little bit different going into this? It's a five-round fight. It's kind

01:08 of, you know, those five-round co-main events don't always come together. How is your camp,

01:14 Ben, and why did you decide to go with a five-round fight as opposed to a three-round fight on the

01:19 main card? I wanted to go five because I believe in myself. I feel like the better fighter wins

01:25 over duration. You know, anybody can catch a submission when you're dry or throw a punch or

01:31 a kick and catch you early, but to break somebody down and win rounds over 25 minutes, the better

01:38 fighter usually wins, and I feel like I'm better than these guys, so that's what I wanted. I wanted

01:44 a five-round fight. Now, you are coming off a loss to Gaethje. Are your camps any different

01:50 when you're coming off a loss, or is it just really just the preparations the same and you

01:54 just keep going? Preparations pretty much the same. I mean, out of my last four or five fights,

02:02 I've only went three rounds or scheduled three rounds maybe once or twice out of the last five.

02:08 I don't know the stats, but I've been prepping for five-round fights for years now, so that part

02:13 of camp is the same. You know, the cardio push, the weight management, all that stuff. What I did

02:17 do since the fight with Gaethje is take a lot less trauma to the head, a lot less hard sparring with

02:23 boxing gloves and things like that. You mentioned earlier, you're 35 now. This is going to be your

02:28 30th fight in the UFC. You know, your opponent's a little bit younger. Like you said, he's an

02:34 up-and-coming hungry lion. What would a win here for you mean for another title run as far as kind

02:40 of putting him out and continuing another run to the title? We'll see. It's tough before the smoke

02:49 clears and the fight happens, everything like that. You know, so many things have to fall into

02:53 place and have to go through for me to even assess a situation like that. Like you said,

02:58 this is my 30th fight in the UFC, so I know how things work. I've been close to the top for years,

03:03 and I feel like I'm always one big fight, one big finish away from a title shot,

03:07 just with my track record and the guys that I beat and the type of fights that I fight.

03:11 I feel like I'm always close to that. So two guys, you've fought both these guys before,

03:16 Max Holloway, Justin Gaethje at UFC 300. Max is moving up a weight class. I've fought them both

03:22 twice. Yeah, twice. Can you give us some insight into how you see this fight going and what

03:28 Holloway's possible addition to the division means for the title picture in general? Do you see him

03:33 working his way into that? If he does get the win and then gets ranked at lightweight, it's just

03:38 going to make... I mean, it's a lot of fun matchups, a bunch of new matchups that me as a fight fan

03:42 would love to see, but he's going to jump the line. And the division has been so murky without

03:48 a clear, clear contenders, and it's just going to complicate things in the division. But he's a big

03:57 boy. Max isn't small, and I think he's going to fit right in. I think he has a good chance to beat

04:02 Gaethje. Can't really talk to you without talking about another one of your former opponents,

04:06 Conor McGregor. Last time we saw Conor fighting the UFC was against you almost two and a half

04:11 years ago. Do you think we'll ever see Conor in the octagon again? Because it seems like it just

04:16 keeps getting pushed back and pushed back. And if that does happen, will we ever see you guys

04:21 come together for that fourth fight? That's another one of those who knows questions, man.

04:27 I have no idea. I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine if he's ever going to come back.

04:31 And how is he going to look when he comes back? Most likely he's fighting Chandler.

04:36 Chandler's chasing that. And it seems like they pretty much announced that that was going to

04:41 happen. We just don't have a date for it. So we'll see, man. No telling.

04:45 Let's talk about another former fighter that was on the same roster as you, Francis Nganou. He'll

04:53 be fighting next weekend as well, taking on Anthony Joshua for his second professional bout.

04:58 Have you had a chance to walk? I know you're big into boxing. Have you had a chance to talk

05:02 to Francis or watch his fights? And how do you see the fight against Joshua going?

05:07 First off, I'm a huge boxing fan. I'm a huge combat sports fan, but I follow boxing pretty

05:12 closely. And if you would have asked me this same question before he fought Tyson Fury,

05:18 I would have said he has no chance. He's just too clunky, not smooth enough to throw combinations

05:26 with real boxers. Footwork's completely different. But he goes out there and fights Tyson Fury the

05:33 way he did. I don't know. He's going to be better. Now he's got his feet wet. He's been in the big

05:38 lights, been in the ring with arguably one of the best heavyweights of all time. And people said he

05:43 won. There are people arguing that he won the fight. So we'll see. Joshua has had a tendency

05:48 to get clipped in fights, get hurt. And when you got big guys like that, one punch is all it takes.

05:54 So yeah, he definitely has a chance. He can do it. He can shock the world.

05:57 Being such a big boxing fan, do you ever see a scenario or world where we'll see you in the ring

06:04 kind of showing off your boxing skills? There's those big money fights against the YouTubers,

06:10 Jake Paul's on the scene. Will we ever see you in the ring?

06:13 I would love to box, to dedicate and commit myself to a training camp. Just boxing would

06:19 be something fun, something different. I've been fighting mixed martial arts for 17 years straight.

06:23 It would just be different, a change of pace, a different focus and exciting. But I think I have

06:29 good bit of fights left with the UFC and I'm 35. So for me to fight all these fights out and become

06:35 a free agent, I don't know how long that would be, if I even have that many fights left in me.

06:38 So we'll see, man. One day at a time. But that was always a goal. I did want to box.

06:43 Last question. I know you do a lot of good work with the Good Fight Foundation down in Louisiana.

06:48 Do you want to just tell us a little bit about the work that the Good Fight does?

06:51 Yeah, we do. Wherever we see need in the community in Louisiana, we try to help out with them

06:56 in immediate around Lafayette, Louisiana. But we've done stuff all over the world. We're going

07:02 to continue to grow. But we help wherever we can, whether it's car seats for kids and moms who are

07:06 underprivileged and coming out of the hospital to families who need to put food on the table,

07:12 backpacks, school supplies for kids every school year, Christmas presents for shelters for the

07:19 women and children there. We've done so many things, man, I'd have to actually go to go to

07:23 the website or get a list of things we've done. But we over the since 2018, we've it's grown.

07:28 And it's been amazing to see the way it's grown so organically and all crowdfunded and all the

07:33 things we all the goals we accomplish are all done through selling the merchandise. I mean,

07:37 the memorabilia that I wear to the octagon, and also from from outside donors donated to the

07:43 website or donated to the goals when we set them. But it's me auctioning off the shorts,

07:47 the gloves and everything that I wear to the octagon each fight kind of is the fire that gets

07:52 a lot of these goals completed. And for this fight, we just announced that we're going to be

07:56 working with food net in Lafayette, Louisiana. Last year alone, they distribute they distributed

08:01 35,000 food bags to families in need. And you know, there's a lot of families facing food

08:06 insecurities and in all over the world, obviously, but in South Louisiana, and we're just trying to

08:11 give back. Very nice. Make sure you check out the good fights website there. All right, Dustin,

08:16 thank you. Good luck fitting your fight next weekend, man.

08:18 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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