Dustin Poirier Reveals He Has Received Offer To Fight Nate Diaz On Short Notice
Former interim UFC lightweight champion, Dustin Poirier has revealed this Tuesday that he has received and agreed to an offer from the promotion to meet with arch-rival, Nate Diaz on less than six-weeks notice.
Lafayette native, Poirier most recently headlined UFC 269 in December, suffering an eventual third round standing rear-naked choke loss to defending lightweight champion, Charles Oliveira.
In the days and weeks following the main event clash, Poirier had received numerous call-outs from the aforenoted, Diaz, who claimed he would fight the Louisianan in January after Poirier maintained that that fight was the only bout which currently interested him.
However, in late December, Poirier appeared to pour cold water on a fight with Diaz, claiming the Stockton native was no longer interested in fighting him anymore, before then claiming that a showdown was most likely to take place in February than January, and then cryptically tweeting, “I’m in, let’s go!!!” alluding to a quickfire Octagon return.
Speaking with iconic boxing coach, Teddy Atlas on THE FIGHT podcast, Poirier revealed he has received an offer to fight Diaz on short notice, less than six weeks, in fact, and he has subsequently agreed to it.
“Honestly – another thing that kinda got that flame going, is a couple days ago, I got a phone call – but I can’t talk about it,” Dustin Poirier said. “It’s a very short notice thing. Something I would hate to do is stack things against myself and take a fight on short notice, but, we’ll see what happens, man. I don’t want to give too much ‘cause I don’t know what I can say. No contract has been signed yet, but if this goes go through, I’m gonna take it.”
THE FIGHT co-host, Ken Rideout then speculated that Poirier had accepted to fight Diaz on short-notice, which the former interim lightweight champion confirmed.
“Hey, look! I don’t owe these guys (the UFC) nothing, man, I’m not biting my tongue,” Dustin Poirier said. “It is Nate Diaz. And just like he got on Twitter – I’m not gonna say what card, I’m not gonna say a date or whatever, but he got on Twitter talking, everybody’s a tough guy. This guy really fights – and I’m a fan of him. But everybody’s a tough guy on the internet.”
“I can’t tell you that,” Dustin Poirier replied when pressed on when the fight could possibly occur. “But not a lot. Because fans are too good, they’re gonna know exactly what card, you know – I don’t wanna get that far (ahead). Less than six weeks for sure. I said yes, now we’re waiting on him.”
Dustin Poirier confirms a fight with Nate Diaz on short notice would take place at welterweight
Whilst no official date, event, or location for the potential fight between Poirier and Diaz has been confirmed at the time of publication, a less than six-week timeframe presents two potential landing pads for the bout; UFC 270 on January 22. – and UFC 271 on February 12.
Given the short notice nature of the potential pairing, Poirier also confirmed that he would be moving to the welterweight limit of 170lbs for the possible fight with Diaz – marking his divisional return for the first time in 15 years.
