Dustin Poirier
Dustin Poirier made an appearance on the Teddy Atlas podcast, and discussed the commonality in his and Justin Gaethje’s approach to fight Charles Oliveira
UFC lightweight fighter Dustin Poirier’s appearance on ‘The Fight with Teddy Atlas’ has become a staple in recent times. Poirier can be seen comfortably discussing fight updates, insights, with astuteness. During his recent appearance on the podcast, the ‘Diamond’ tried to debunk the stumper that is Charles Oliveira.
Charles Oliveira is the true embodiment of what a switch in mindset can do to your career. With 16 submissions and 19 finishes, Oliveira has the record for being the most dangerous finisher inside the octagon, but ‘Do Bronx’ wasn’t always this threatening.
In his last two fights, Oliveira has dismantled the likes of Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje, after bouncing back from some initial adversity. Both fighters managed to drop the Brazilian, but refused to follow up on Oliveira’s desired terrain on the mat after he pulled guard. This cost them the fight, as Oliveira recovered and quickly got back up on his feet to beat them.
“I think he should have followed him up,” Poirier said on “THE FIGHT with Teddy Atlas.” “Got on top, tried to finish the fight. You know, find out how hurt Charles really was. There’s only one way to find out: You’ve got to dive in.”
“Same thing with me – of course, you have to respect jiu jitsu,” Poirier said. “I’ve been doing jiu-jitsu forever. I’m a blackbelt, as well, compete with and train with the best guys in the world. I’m confident, and I have good jiu-jitsu. I just respected his too much that I didn’t engage. The plan was to by any means stay off the ground and don’t play jiu-jitsu at all with this guy.
“So, even in the second round when I ended up on my back, and he was on top, I just tried to get stood up. I tried to get a stalemate. I didn’t engage and use my jiu-jitsu offensively or defensively, and I should have. I should have created space. I should have attempted submissions and used that to create space and get back up.”
Looks like former UFC interim lightweight champion Dustin Poirier has had enough of Colby Covington’s instigating callouts. The Louisiana fighter has apparently accepted a fight with Colby Covington for July 30th on the UFC 277 card.
Colby Covington has verbally eviscerated Poirier by hurling insults towards him, his wife and kids. He has slammed the ‘Diamond’ on several occasion for calling out washed out fighters or lightweights who jumped to welterweight, even claiming that he’s petrified to fight him.
Poirier on the other hand has been holding out for a fight against Nate Diaz, which the UFC is not a fan of. With no opponents lined up, Poirier has decided to settle his feud with former teammate Colby Covington, in back to back grudge match for ‘The Chaos’.
Dustin spoke to Ariel Helwani for the MMA Hour, and spoke about his relationship with Colby, his future plans, and their sparring stories at the American Top Team.
“I don’t hate anyone, but if there was a line right before hate, Colby’s standing right there,” Poirier said. “I really dislike the guy, and I’ve been saying I don’t want him to make a dollar off of fighting me, but they offered me him last week… It was either wait to the end of the year and fight for a No. 1 contender at lightweight, or fight in July, and that was the name that they gave me. So I was like, ‘F*** it.’
“So that’s not a call out of him. I’m not going out of my way. I don’t want to fight the guy. I don’t want him profiting anything off of me, but if they’re not giving me a fight until the end of the year and this is what they’re giving me, I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do. I fought in December. I don’t want to sit in a holding pattern for 10-11 months. I’m healthy and I want to fight…
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