Dustin Poirier has made his mark in the UFC, but the 34-year-old former interim lightweight champion still has an ambition to compete in boxing before he retires.
“I would like to,” Poirier says of competing in the squared circle in a recent interview on ‘The MMA Hour’ show. “The first time I ever put on a pair of gloves they were boxing gloves. I thought I was going to be a boxer.”
“I loved combat sports. I loved boxing first. I would watch fights and I would be inspired by it, and I knew whatever those guys were showing in there, fighting through the blood and the grit, kept pushing forward, whatever that was, I knew I had it. I knew I had that.
“I knew about cage fighting. Me and my dad used to watch VHS tapes from mom and pop video stores back in the day. Of course I knew about cage fighting, and I had wrestled a little bit when I was younger, didn’t know anything about jiu-jitsu, but when I met those guys in the boxing gym and they started telling me where they trained and did kickboxing and jiu-jitsu, that next weekend I was at their gym and never came back.”
Looking back, Poirier doesn’t regret that decision, even if he does also believe that his abilities could have served him well in the boxing ring.
“I happy with where it went,” Poirier said. “I think I would have done well in boxing. I still think I can do well in boxing, but I’m an MMA fighter.”
And while Poirier clearly harbors an ambition to box, it seems that he’s not convinced that it will become a reality.
“I would like to before it’s all done, but I don’t think it’s ever going to happen,” Poirier admitted. “I think I have like 5-6 more fights left on my contract with the UFC.
