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Dustin Poirier wants to add a different kind of highlight to his résumé.
A former UFC interim lightweight champion and likely future Hall of Famer, Poirier has done just about all there is to do in MMA, from headlining events to winning multiple Fight of the Year Awards. But one thing he hasn’t done is take part of one of the UFC’s historic cards, like UFC 100. But he hopes to change that in 2024.
“I think it would be cool,” Poirier said Wednesday on The MMA Hour.” Like I’ve said in all these interviews, I’m probably not going to be fight at [UFC] 400, I missed 200 — 300 would be awesome to have on the résumé.
“I sat down with the UFC, we talked about it, and they’re kind of on the same page as me. If we can get the right opponent that makes sense for a big fight, then we can do it.”
What constitutes the right opponent for Poirier is a bit tricky though. “The Diamond” is coming off a brutal knockout loss to Justin Gaethje at UFC 291, and has previously been open about not wanting to fight some of the less marketable names at lightweight. With most of the more well-known fighters in the weight class already booked, Poirier admits that he’s not entirely sure who fits the bill, but did list the two qualities he’s looking for.
“A fight that guarantees me a title fight, or a really big fight,” Poirier said. “Something that I’m super excited about doing. That’s all I want.”
With the lightweight division seemingly thin of possible opponents that would qualify, Poirier also addressed the possibility of moving to welterweight, shutting that idea down outright.
“We kind of discussed my weight,” Poirier said, talking about his meeting with the UFC. “I think I was 172 pounds sitting in the office. I’m just too small for 170. People don’t understand the fight game and the weight cutting and how big these guys are. You can’t weight 172-173 pounds walking around, skip breakfast, weigh in, and then fight the next day at 173 pounds. These guys are going to be 195. People don’t understand. At the top level, you give 20 pounds to somebody, it’s just not good.”
Poirier also rejected the idea of dropping back down to featherweight, saying that he actually thinks he could make the cut but that he wants to “enjoy the process and fight and feel good,” which would be impossible. Instead, Poirier is putting his faith in the UFC and the belief that something that makes sense will eventually turn up.
“[UFC] were in my corner with the situation,” Poirier said. “If 300 is my goal, if I want to make that happen, we can probably make it happen. But we didn’t have extensive talks into that. They were just like, we can probably do that.”
UFC 300 is expected to take place next April in the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
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