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Former interim UFC lightweight champion Dustin Poirier recently took to Instagram to post a video of himself shadowboxing. The 33-year-old captioned the post:
“My next performance will be my best. Someone is getting clapped”
Late last year, Dustin Poirier hinted that he could be moving up from lightweight (155 pounds) to welterweight (170 pounds) sooner rather than later. In the aftermath of his most recent fight, which took place last December, the Louisiana native has been lobbying for a showdown against MMA megastar Nate Diaz.
Poirier and Diaz were scheduled to clash in a lightweight bout at UFC 230 in November 2018. However, the fight fell apart after Poirier withdrew due to a hip injury. Diaz, on his part, has lately expressed renewed interest in fighting ‘The Diamond’.
Furthermore, the consensus is that, unlike their 2018 booking, the Poirier-Diaz matchup isn’t expected to take place at lightweight. It will instead be contested in the welterweight division.
Nate Diaz recently spoke to TMZ Sports and went as far as claiming that he’d like to retire from the fight game and wants to face Dustin Poirier in his final UFC bout. Meanwhile, as reported by ESPN MMA, Poirier believes that his much-discussed matchup against Diaz could finally come to fruition this summer.
Dana White on a potential fight between Dustin Poirier and Nate Diaz
Speaking to ESPN MMA last month, Dana White suggested that the UFC is interested in a possible fight between Poirier and Diaz. However, he noted that the promotion already has several fights lined up for its upcoming events.
The UFC president insinuated that the MMA community might have to wait a bit longer for the Poirier-Diaz matchup to materialize. He said:
"Yeah, of course, we're interested. This is what we do. We make fights every weekend. What happens is guys want to jump out of nowhere and say, 'I want to do this. I want to do that.' We have fights booked all the way until I want to say May 2 right now. Everything is in place, everything is done. We're contracted to get guys fights three times a year. They've got to get fights. We'll get a fight."
Poirier’s last fight was a third-round submission loss against UFC lightweight champion Charles Oliveira at UFC 269 in December 2021.
Meanwhile, Diaz is coming off a unanimous decision loss against Leon Edwards in a welterweight bout that transpired at UFC 263 in June 2021.
