Dustin Poirier has confirmed that he’s postponing his retirement plans for the time being after coming to the conclusion that he doesn’t want to retire on a loss.
“The shift needs to be internally for what the motivation for fighting is,” Poirier said on the Anik & Florian podcast around six weeks after a 5th round submission loss to current lightweight champion Islam Makhachev at UFC 302. “Because if it’s not about the world title, why am I fighting? And after the Islam fight, when I got back home I thought, ‘Maybe this is it?’ A few weeks went by, injuries started hurting less and less post-fight, and I was like, ‘I’ve got to do this again.’ I’ve never lost two in a row. I can’t leave this sport on a loss.
“But at the same time, I want to be 100 percent in it if I’m going to do it again, because I don’t want to disrespect the sport. I honor this stuff. I do. I just want to do it right and get my hand raised and leave on my terms with a win. But that’s no guarantee. I could go back out there and somebody could whip my ass. That’s the thing.”
As for who he wants to fight, he recently mentioned Nate Diaz as an opponent and it seems that’s whose still on his mind, though he doesn’t think the UFC are on the same page with regards to making it happen.
“The thing with Diaz is — I’m in contact with the UFC behind the scenes about my next moves all the time,” Poirier said. “We talk when I want to fight again, how bad are my injuries, things like that. And the last time I brought his name up, they didn’t want to talk about him, they didn’t want to do business. A lot of fans don’t know, behind the scenes he’s such a struggle to deal with that I think they just don’t want to do it anymore.
“But if it came around, if that was something that was a reality, I 100 percent would take the fight right now, sign a contract today. And Nate knows that because I’ve done it a few times.”
Jon Anik went on to list Diaz, Conor McGregor, Alexander Volkanovski, Justin Gaethje, Max Holloway, Charles Oliveira and Colby Covington as potential opponents for him, and Poirier confirmed he was thinking along the same lines.
“100 percent,” Poirier said. “… For sure. If I do fight again and when I do fight again, it will be definitely one of those guys you just said.”
