Dustin Poirier has claimed that his UFC 299 co-main event fight with Benoit Saint Denis is off, only to then backtrack just a few hours later.
“My fights off but still working,” Poirier had initially wrote on X.
“There was no contractual agreement before the fight was announced and we couldn’t come to terms,” Poirier later informed MMAfighting’s Ariel Helwani.
However, having set the cat among the pigeons, later in the day Poirier posted again to say he’d made a mistake and that the fight was actually still on after all.
“Sorry folks, I jumped the gun, I couldn’t get a hold of my manager for a few days,” Poirier wrote. “I just spoke with him and Hunter. Misunderstanding on my part. Fight is on! See you March 9th Miami.”
It seems a bit odd that just five weeks out from the fight Poirier still hadn’t been sure whether his fight was actually happening or not.
MMAfighting.com writer Guilherme Cruz pointed out that this was the 2nd day in a row that something like this had happened after Sean Brady pulled out of his previously announced UFC Fight Night 241 headliner against Vicente Luque due to an injury and then revealed that he’d never actually officially signed to take that fight.
Cruz also went on to recall that in a previous conversation with Saint Denis’ coach Daniel Woirin several weeks ago he’d claimed that they didn’t know the Poirier fight was happening until Dana White announced it on social media.
“Benoit was sleeping when news broke. His wife woke him up saying, ‘Hey, you’re fighting Poirier’ [laughs],” Woirin had claimed.
It appears Dana White hasn’t taken kindly to Cruz’s reporting however, as he’s since put him on blast on Instagram, stating, “go f*** yourself scumbag”, while posting a private message exchange with Saint Denis to prove that he had told him the fight was happening.
“You media guys are such pieces of s***. Writing whatever click bait you can to be first and not right. This is why nobody trust or likes you.”
Dana White responds to the Benoit Saint Denis and Dustin Poirier news via instagram pic.twitter.com/h4fSR9KCR9
— COMBAT SPORTS TODAY (@CSTodayNews) February 1, 2024
Despite aiming his wrath squarely at Cruz it’s worth stressing however that the reporter was only relaying what he’d been told during a video interview with Woirin.
In the end it’s a bit of a storm in a teacup given that the Poirier vs. Saint Denis fight is still on, but perhaps its a reminder that when it comes to major fight announcements, verbal agreements are nice, but nothing’s truly official until the contract’s signed.
