Poirier: Fighting Makhachev At UFC 294 Would Have Been ‘Perfect Timing’

The UFC had called Poirier about facing Makhachev last second and Poirier had agreed to do it. Unfortunately, it turned out he was their second option.

Dustin Poirier has opened up on just how close he came to fighting Islam Makhachev at UFC 294.

Lightweight champion Makhachev would end up fighting (and beating) Alexander Volkanovski at the event in Abu Dhabi. But if “The Great” hadn’t accepted the fight, it very well could have been Poirier competing for the belt.

“Yeah, they offered me the fight on ten, eleven days notice,” Dustin said on the latest episode of The MMA Hour. “I accepted it. My weight’s been crazy low these past few months, I’ve stayed on a diet, I’ve been eating really healthy these last few months. So making the weight wasn’t a problem.”

“The UFC called me the day I landed in South Florida, I was just checking on my condo, doing some training with my team there,” he continued. “Because I hadn’t been there since the [Gaethje] fight. They called me the day I flew in and I said ‘Perfect, man, let’s go!’”

“So when they called me, they told me to give them 24 hours, asked what’s my weight, would I accept the fight. They wouldn’t give me a whole lot of info. I accepted, waited 24 hours, then started hitting up Hunter [Campbell], hitting up my management saying ‘Hey, I haven’t heard anything dude, it’s been 24 hours, what’s going on?’ So I guess they told me they’d have an answer for me in 24 hours because they offered it to Volkanovski and they were waiting on his confirmation. But I don’t know.”

“I was down like four flats,” he said. “I thought it was perfect timing because I had just planned the trip to Florida, a few hours after I got to my condo from the airport, I got a call and I knew my team was there. My boxing coach was there, Mike Brown was there and they were going to be there for the next couple weeks. It was less than two weeks away and my team was all intact and ready to go so I thought it was a good time.”

Unfortunately, Poirier didn’t get the fight. He didn’t even get a call telling him he didn’t get the fight — he found out about Makhachev vs. Volkanovski like the rest of us. That didn’t bother him, though.

“It is what it is in this game, you never know what’s going to happen,” Poirier said. “They could call me tomorrow with a fight, I don’t know. That’s just the fight game. Anything could happen at any time, and it does. So you just kinda roll with it, stay ready, keep your weight good, that’s what I do.”

Currently, Dustin Poirier is staying ready in case the UFC decides to book him for UFC 300 in April. There’s been no commitment from them on that end, but he has told them he wants in on the historic event and they’ve said that could work out.