Dustin Poirier hopes to end career on high note in front of home crowd, faces Holloway at UFC 318
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana native Dustin Poirier will get to fight one last time in the Octagon and this time it will be back in the Bayou State.
Poirier will take on Max Holloway for the UFC BMF title Saturday night in the headline fight of UFC 318 in the Smoothie King Center.
UFC 318 features five main card fights and 14 overall fights as the combat sport makes its return to New Orleans for the first time since 2015.
Poirier (30-9), a native of Lafayette, announced in April that his fight against Holloway (26-8) will be the last of his career and he plans to retire after the match.
“It’s a little surreal,” Poirier said. “All the pressure and obligations are still there and still thinking about all the fight stuff in my head. Every now and then though, it starts creeping into the back of my head that this is the last time I’m doing this.
“I don’t come from a place with silver spoons and a lot of money. All the fights that I have had all over the world, a lot of people don’t get to go. To be so close to home (for this final fight) where people can hop in their car and drive to New Orleans, to have people see me fight for this last fight that have never seen me fight in person before is super special.”
The Holloway-Poirier main event will be the third time the two lightweights have faced off. Poirier won the first two fights, submitting Holloway in the first round in 2012 and winning a unanimous decision back in 2019.
“I’m expecting another war,” Poirier said. “This is a trilogy spanning 13 years. Each fight has been so different. Max is a legend and has done incredible things in his career. Fighting him for my last fight seems poetic. I was his debut in the UFC and he is my last fight. Everything is happening at the right time.”
The 36-year-old Poirier said he heads into the fight in arguably the best shape of his career.
“I’m 90-something days completely sober; no alcohol and no marijuana,” he said. “For probably four, five months I have been eating kind of like a carnivore with just meat and berries and a little bit of vegetables here and there. I’m in the best shape, this is the lightest I have ever shown up to fight week. I did everything right.”
Despite fighting in front of the home state crowd and having defeated Holloway in their previous two matchups, Poirier enters the fight as a +110 underdog, according to BetMGM.
Holloway, who is looking to rebound from a first-round knockout loss to Ilia Topuria last October, is defending his BMF title belt for the first time.
“We both know what’s at stake,” Holloway said. “I’m here to play spoiler in this fight.
“I was 4-0 the first time I fought him and I was on a 13-fight winning streak the second time I fought him. He did me dirty, so I guess I got to do him dirty in his retirement fight. I can’t wait to go out there Saturday night and show everyone what we have been working on.”
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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports
By DAVID FOLSE II
Associated Press
