Dustin “The Diamond” Poirier, one of the most beloved fighters in UFC history, is set to put a bow on his career at UFC 318 in his hometown of New Orleans on Saturday night. He’ll take on one of his career-defining rivals, Max Holloway, for the third time in the headlining bout, capping a pay-per-view that is essentially a farewell tribute to Poirier under the guise of a numbered UFC event.
Saturday’s show should be quite the sendoff for the 36-year-old future Hall of Famer, who will exit MMA as perhaps the last of a dying breed of fighters that truly exemplified the rugged nature of the sport before its acceptance among the masses. He also has the rare distinction of being one of the sport’s most popular fighters without ever having held more than an interim title belt.
Poirier is 30-9 in his professional MMA career with 15 knockouts on record, although “The Diamond” has admitted to fighting in up to 10 unsanctioned bouts that don’t appear on his traditional record while coming up in the Southeastern United States fight scene. Poirier’s outlaw nature and devastating power are the reasons why he’s become such a fan favorite over the years, but his rise to the main event scene was a slow burn.
The Lafayette, Louisiana, native debuted with the UFC on New Year’s Day in 2011, beating Josh Grispi by unanimous decision on the first preliminary card in UFC history that was shown to a live television audience. It took Poirier until UFC 236 in 2019 to main event his first pay-per-view, which concluded with Poirier winning the lone (interim) belt of his career in his second bout against Holloway. That came while Khabib Nurmagomedov was suspended in the wake of the Conor McGregor brawl at UFC 229.
As for the completion of the trilogy against Holloway on Saturday, Poirier is expecting a third war — and a third win — against his Hawaiian opponent, even if he hasn’t fully accepted that this is really his last go-around.
“It kind of comes in waves,” Poirier said. “It feels like a normal fight week, all the pressure, all the obligations of fight week. Cutting weight, repetitive interviews, thinking about the fight nonstop in the back of my head, but then every now and then it will creep in, like, I can’t believe this is the last time I’m ever going to sit in front of you guys.
“I’m expecting another war. I’ve been saying this every interview when asked about this trilogy with Max. This is a trilogy spanning 13 years, and we’ve met at different points. We were different fighters, different men. Fighting him for the last one, it seems poetic. Everything’s happening at the right time.”
Poirier would go on to lose the interim belt to Khabib in the main event of UFC 242, but he brought the undefeated champion closer to the edge than any fighter. That performance solidified Poirier’s place as a main eventer for the rest of his career. UFC 318 will be his sixth pay-per-view main event since that loss to Khabib, not to mention a UFC Fight Night main event against Dan Hooker in 2020 that will almost certainly go down among the fights of the decade.
Poirier’s two most notable moments in the Octagon both came at the expense of McGregor. The first was a second-round knockout via a flurry of punches at UFC 257, and the second came in the immediate rematch after McGregor suffered a compound fracture in his leg at UFC 264. Those wins avenged a 2014 first-round knockout Poirier suffered at the hands of the Irishman at UFC 178, serving as a crucial piece of the lore surrounding Poirier’s career.
“The Diamond” won’t leave the sport as one of the undisputed GOATs like Khabib, or as a mainstream celebrity like McGregor, but he does leave as one of the most important cult heroes in UFC history. That’s because of how he connected with the diehard segment of UFC fans who have seen the sport go from its outlaw roots to a corporate TKO-owned empire. One of those fans is comedian and known fight fan Theo Von, who sent a heartwarming farewell message to Poirier that aptly described his impact on the sport.
“Thank you, man,” Von wrote. “Watching you show up for yourself and for your wars has inspired me so much over the years and I know I’m not the only one. There are times I want to quit and I don’t. And it’s because you didn’t quit. You never quit. You readjust. You recalibrate. You re-believe in yourself and you make the walk back into the fire of life. Because you do that, it helps us all do that. That’s pretty awesome, man. So on behalf of the fans, if they’ll allow it, and the state of Louisiana, if they’ll allow it, I want to say thank you for letting us be part of it all.”
