Dustin Poirier and former UFC Lightweight Champion Eddie Alvarez fought to a no contest a few months back at UFC 211.
Poirier claims that Alvarez used a veteran move in the illegal knee strike that ended their fight because the former champion was about to lose in the encounter.
“I’m not a quitter, man. Just look at my history. I don’t know what to say about that, but if he needs to tell people that to make himself feel better about the nine minutes and 30 seconds that he got his ass whipped, whatever. The thing is, I grew up looking up to Eddie. He was a big name fighting out in Japan and HD Net used to do specials on him and stuff. I was a young fighter then and I really liked the guy. Now, still, I respect the fighter. He’s a strong fighter and he has a lot of heart, but as a person he’s a b*tch, man. He’s talking sh*t. When I stood up for him in the heat of the moment I thought that maybe (the illegal knees) were accidents and now I’ve gone back and watched the fight as fan like you said. Now I think it was in purpose. It was a veteran move, he knew he was out of that fight and he saw an opportunity to land a strike on a guy and did it. I think he knew exactly what he was doing. He quit. I never quit anything in my life. I’m a fighter man, that’s ridiculous,” Poirier said on The MMA Hour.
Alvarez has since moved on from the fight to defeat Justin Gaethje at UFC 218, while Poirier went on to defeat former UFC Lightweight Champion Anthony Pettis at UFC Fight Night Norfolk.
The lightweight contender wants a rematch with Alvarez and he believes another fight between them makes sense.
“It makes sense if we had no history and it makes even more sense now that we have history. Fans want to see it, I want to do it again, I’m not so sure about him,” says Poirier.
Neither fighter has a bout booked at the moment, but both aren’t expected to compete again until 2018.
