Dustin Poirier recently pulled out of negotiations for a bout with Tony Ferguson citing issues over the financial aspect of the deal, but Dana White has now countered that notion by suggesting that ‘The Diamond’ just didn’t want to fight.
“Listen, I like Dustin,” White said after the Contender Series 33 event last night. “I’m not going to sit up here and say anything negative about Dustin, he’s a great kid. I don’t know if it was he didn’t want to fight in Abu Dhabi or what his deal was. He didn’t want to fight,” White told the media on Tuesday.
“Listen, there’s a lot of different ways to turn down a fight. Negotiating yourself out of one is one of the ways you can do it. So for whatever reason, he didn’t want to take this fight. Only he knows that.”
However, Poirier has since pushed back at White’s claim in no uncertain terms.
“I WANT THE FIGHT,” Poirier exclaimed on Twitter.
In all fairness to Poirier this is not an uncommon tactic from White when fighters start to push for money, with Georges St-Pierre probably being the most clear-cut example when he sought a major payday for his comeback fight a few years ago.
Poirier has also been bringing real value to the UFC in recent times, including his most recent decision win over Dan Hooker in June, which instantly went down as a ‘Fight of The Year’ candidate, not to mention his other bing victories over the likes of Justin Gaethje, Max Holloway, Eddie Alvarez, Anthony Pettis and more in the past few years.
