A lightweight fight between Dustin Poirier and Michael Chandler is in the works for UFC 281 at Madison Square Garden in NYC on November 12th.
That’s the word according to mmafighting.com’s Ariel Helwani who suggests that the booking is “close and likely” at this stage.
The news comes just a month after Poirier and Chandler were caught on film engaging in a heated verbal confrontation cage-side at UFC 276 in Las Vegas during International Fight Week.
Poirier would be heading into the fight off a third round submission loss to Charles Oliveira in their lightweight title fight at UFC 269 back in December.
Prior to that, Poirier had been on a three-fight winning streak that saw him beat Dan Hooker on the scorecards before going on to TKO Conor McGregor twice in a row.
As for Chandler, he’s coming off a KO victory over Tony Ferguson at UFC 274 in May. Before that he had also lost out in a title fight against Charles Oliveira, followed by a unanimous decision loss to Justin Gaethje.
That leaves Chandler ranked No.5 in the 155lb division, three places below the No.2 ranked Poirier.
If the fight is finalized it will join a UFC 281 card that currently has no other fights attached to it at this stage, though Frankie Edgar has made it known that he would like to hold his retirement bout at this show.
