First, Dustin Poirier was preventing at UFC 299. Then he wasn’t. Now he’s. It’s been a busy Thursday afternoon for ‘The Diamond’ on social media.
Final month, Dana White introduced that Poirier would sq. off with rising light-weight contender Benoit Saint-Denis on March 9 when the promotion returns to Miami one month earlier than its large landmark occasion in Las Vegas. Battle followers have been genuinely amped up for the scrap because it represented a recent matchup in a division that has seen the highest fighters round-robin one another for the previous few years. Nevertheless, catastrophe seemingly struck when Poirier took to social media writing, “My fights off however nonetheless working.”
Ariel Helwani, host of The MMA Hour, reportedly spoke to Poirier who revealed that “there was no contractual settlement earlier than the battle was introduced and we couldn’t come to phrases.”
The speedy query that arose was, why is the UFC asserting fights they’ve but to signal? Reality be advised, it’s a pretty widespread apply inside the promotion, however it seems that on this occasion, it got here again to chew them on the a**.
Because the occasions continued to unfold, Dana White noticed one other alternative to slam the MMA media by accusing shops of manufacturing clickbait even though Poirier himself was the one who revealed that the battle was off. He additionally shared a dialog with Saint-Denis’ battle workforce confirming particulars of the bout.
Saint-Denis’ acceptance of the battle was by no means in query, so why White selected to share this specific screenshot is nothing wanting baffling.
Dustin Poirier Reverses Stance, Says Battle with Saint-Denis is Again On After ‘Misunderstanding’ together with his supervisor
In yet one more twist to the story, Dustin Poirier reversed his place shortly after asserting that the battle was off.
“Sorry of us, I jumped the gun, I couldn’t come up with my supervisor for a number of days,” Poirier wrote on X. “I simply spoke with him and Hunter. Misunderstanding on my half. Battle is on! See you March ninth Miami!!!”
It didn’t take lengthy for everybody to learn between the strains and see that Poirier was merely “taking part in the sport” by going public to get the deal that he needed out of the stingy UFC again workplace.
“Dustin lastly going public bought him what he needed,” Helwani reported on social media. “That’s the biz. Good on him. Doesn’t change the truth that up till an hour in the past he didn’t agree – keep in mind he broke this story, nobody else – and when this was introduced nearly a month in the past he hadn’t agreed. Nobody is denying that BSD agreed, which his workforce has confirmed.”
So it seems that all of this was nothing greater than a sport of cat and mouse between Poirier and the promotion with the MMA media getting used as bait.
Properly performed, Mr. Poirier. Properly performed.