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Dustin Poirier had a second chance at fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a world champion at UFC 269. He faced Charles Oliveira for the lightweight title. Heading into the fight as the favorite, Poirier was expected to be crowned the new king of lightweights but it wasn't meant to be.
'The Diamond' was submitted by Oliveira with a rear-naked choke in the third round of the fight. Looking back at the squandered opportunity, Poirier regrets a few decisions he made during the fight. The Louisianan feels he made a mistake by not trying to impose his grappling skills in the fight.
Poirier believes he has a very decent jiu-jitsu game and feels he could have done more offensively on the ground after staggering Oliveira on the feet in the first round. He said he made a mistake by refusing to engage with 'Do Bronx' on the ground after knocking him down, thereby allowing him time to recover.
While analyzing what went wrong on the night during an appearance on Teddy Atlas' podcast, Dustin Poirier stated the following:
"When I did hurt him, I didn't want to engage in the grappling. My plan going in was to keep him kickboxing, keep him uncomfortable, not engage at all, and I think... looking back at that I did get submitted but I have good jiu-jitsu. I have been doing jiu-jitsu a long time. I should have engaged and threatened him with my jiu-jitsu instead of trying to stay away from it..."
Check out the latest episode of The Fight podcast with Teddy Atlas below:
Poirier also credited Oliveira for his clinch work during the fight, claiming that the Brazilian's Muay Thai clinch restricted him from teeing off on 'Do Bronx' during the fight. He also regrets not dropping on his back and trying to wriggle his way out when Oliveira attained the standing back mount position on him that led to the submission.
Dustin Poirier explains why he refrained from using kicks against Charles Oliveira
Dustin Poirier showed how devastating calf kicks can be when he fought Conor McGregor at UFC 257 last year. The crippling kicks severely hindered the Irishman's movement, allowing Poirier to set up the knockout in the second round. Against Oliveira, however, Poirier chose to refrain from kicking his opponent's legs.
He chose to refrain from kicking in fear of Oliveira's takedown attempts. Dustin Poirier said he planned to finish Oliveira on the feet by establishing dominance with his boxing game and, in hindsight, regrets not using kicks in the fight. 'The Diamond' said he could have used kicks to set up opportunities to land potentially fight-ending strikes:
"I didn't throw one kick in this fight. That was another weapon I took away because I didn't want him to catch a kick and trip me up and end up getting on top of me on the mat... If I was kicking it would open up punches, when I'm punching it would open up kicks."
