It seems that Dustin Poirier didn’t appreciate Michael Chandler inserting himself into the conversation recently while he was discussing potential opponents for what might be the final fight of his UFC career.
Poirier had suggested Islam Makhachev or Conor McGregor as two fighters he’d be interested in going up against if he did step back into the Octagon, at which point Chandler spoke out to suggest that he should just stick to his original plan to hang up his gloves.
“No thanks” – retire man …we good,” Chandler wrote on X.
Over a week later Poirier had his chance to respond on Wednesday’s edition while talking to Ariel Helwani.
““Who the f*ck is ‘we?!’” Poirier said on The MMA Hour. “You just go here, buddy. You’re not one of us. You’re not ‘we.’ I’ve been here. ‘We’re good.’ Who’s we? Welcome to the UFC, dude. You’ve got one win in the UFC.
“He’s not one of us. I’ve been cutting my teeth in the UFC since January of 2011, 2010. He just got here. Who is we? He’s speaking for the lightweight division? Muscle Milk Mike needs to chill.”
Chandler’s last fight was actually a submission loss to Poirier back in 2022, so perhaps it was unwise of him to speak out in that manner against him.
That being said, he likely felt compelled to speak out against Poirier’s hint at having a trilogy fight against McGregor given that everyone knows Chandler is supposed to be the next opponent for ‘The Notorious’ and has waited a long time for that opportunity.
Poirier knows only too well how lucrative a fight against McGregor can be though, and so even given the bad blood between them he does acknowledge that Chandler is in a tough spot at the moment given that there’s no guarantee at this stage that the Irish superstar will ever return.
“He’s risking the chance of losing the fight if it ever materializes,” Poirier said of the possibility that Chandler could fight someone else while waiting for McGregor to return. “But if he goes in there and loses to someone else, do they give him that Conor shot again? If he takes another fight does Conor move on and take a different fight as well?
“The payoff of beating Conor McGregor, financially and just for your career, is worth the wait. But if you never get it, you’re wasting a lot of years and you’re not a young man. These years are very important.
“I don’t know the way he is. I’m sure he’s got intelligent people around him helping him with his deals. I don’t know the way his contract is structured, but if it does happen and he did the right thing on the backend, he’s going to be paid and set his family up. But if it doesn’t, you’re wasting a lot of years and in this game we get old quick. You leave for two years — and I don’t know how old he is, 36? 37? You leave for two years and come back, you could look like a different person. But only he knows.”
Asked whether he’d wait as long as Chandler has for the potential financial windfall that comes with a McGregor fight, Poirier didn’t appear to be 100% confident in his answer.
“I don’t think so. Not two years,” Poirier said. “I’d have to be in the position. It’s tough to say [how long I’d have waited]. After fighting him the second time in Abu Dhabi and then the way my contract was structured, I would have waited, probably — probably a year.”
