Dustin Poirier says loss to Max Holloway at UFC 318 comes with no regrets, but "now's the time" for retirement

Yahoo

2 days ago

Dustin Poirier has officially ridden off into the sunset. UFC 318 was all about "The Diamond" down in New Orleans, Louisiana this past Saturday. The Smoothie King Center hosted the first Louisiana UFC event in over a decade to deliver the ultimate retirement send-off with Poirier's final bout, a BMF title trilogy fight against longtime rival Max Holloway.
In another epic encounter, Poirier ultimately came up short via a unanimous decision. Poirier stated after the fight that he felt it was closer than the scorecards indicated, but has since changed his mind after watching the fight later that night.
"Being in the eye of the storm and the way you're feeling with the adrenaline and shots you're landing, going back to the stool each round, it felt a lot different than what it looked like from outside when I watched it," Poirier said on Monday's edition of "The Ariel Helwani Show." "I see how he won these rounds. He was busier, throwing more volume, landed good body shots. Just adding up scores in the piggybank.
"I watch it back, I can see myself, I wouldn't say hesitant, but not pulling the trigger like I should have been. Not being as offensive as I should have been. I think that was subliminally done, just self-preservation, trying to get backstage. Knowing this is the last one, at the end of the night the rankings didn't matter, my next fight didn't matter. Not that I pulled back. I gave it my all, but I could have put myself in harm's way to maybe make something happen, for sure."
Noting his questionable hesitancy, it begs the question of whether or not Poirier has any regrets about his in-fight decisions. Ultimately, as with the rest of his career, Poirier said he's at peace.
"I don't think [I regret it]," Poirier said. "Obviously, I tried to hurt him. If I would have landed a shot that hurt him when I dropped him, I tried to finish him. But it could have been horrible. I could have tried to land a big shot or go down the way to put myself in harm's way, like I'm saying, and I could have been knocked out. My brain could have got shaken up worse. So it is what is. I tried to fight a smart fight, be a professional, protect myself at all times, and land shots that I thought were good counters, or good timing when he was open."
For Holloway, this trilogy was his first fight as a full-time lightweight after competing as a featherweight for the majority of his career. His last 155-pound bout came at UFC 300 last year, when he famously knocked out Justin Gaethje in the final second after inviting a brawl in the center of the cage to close the final round.
The second Poirier-Holloway encounter in 2019 went without the exchange, but this time around Poirier fully expected it. He just didn't expect it to be as much of a challenge as it was.
"What happened was what I thought was going to happen," Poirier said of the end of the fight. "The point down, and we were going to exchange punches, but he was just too fast. He was too fast, and I might have thrown one or two punches back at him and I said, 'We're just going to clinch up, we're going to wrestle a little bit. I'm not doing this. I'm not going out like Gaethje.' But I could have landed a shot, too. I just didn't. Once I threw one or two, he was throwing off three or four by the time my two were thrown. And I just thought it was a lot closer in the moment."
Poirier, 36, ends his legendary career on the only pair of back-to-back losses he ever suffered in his 41 professional fights, ending with a 30-10 (1 NC) record. The former featherweight-turned-lightweight legend was crowned the interim champion with his second Holloway win, and went undefeated in non-title fights from 2017 onward until this dance in New Orleans.
Still a highly-ranked competitor at the time of his retirement, Poirier fully expects to stay true to his word and permanently move on from active competition. That doesn't mean he couldn't still hold down his spot as one of the world's best, however, even if he's choosing to walk away now.
"I know I have a couple left in me, for sure," Poirier said. "Physically, I'm fine. I can keep rocking, for sure. I'm not going to leave that much of myself in this sport, in this Octagon. I mean, now's the time. I just feel like I have other things I care about more than fighting. And that never was a thought process or way of feeling and loving things ever before in my life."