Former UFC Lightweight Champion Eddie Alvarez fought Dustin Poirier to a no contest at UFC 211 after Alvarez accidentally nailed Poirier with an illegal knee strike.
Poirier has been offered several rematches with Alvarez and has allegedly accepted them all, but the same apparently cannot be said about Alvarez.
“Me and Eddie were offered a rematch on that Brooklyn show that Tony and Khabib were on,” Poirier said on The MMA Hour. “And my management told me that pretty much they’re probably trying to book this fight because if they fall out, one of you are going to replace them. I accepted the fight. Eddie turned it down. This was months ago. We could have been on that card, Eddie’s ranked higher than me, he probably would have fought for the belt a couple weekends ago. It was offered a bunch of times, man. There were a bunch of cards that they offered the fight on. I accepted every time they offered it, Eddie turned it down every time. I think it was five times.”
Alvarez has competed just one time since the first meeting with Poirier, defeating former WSOF LIghtweight Champion Justin Gaethje at UFC 218. Poirier has fought twice since the initial meeting at UFC 211, defeating former UFC Lightweight Champion Anthony Pettis at UFC Fight Night Norfolk and also defeating Gaethje at UFC On Fox 29.
The surging lightweight even defended Alvarez from critics after UFC 211, but has since come to regret that decision.
“The things that he said after our fight, just the way he acted, I tried to stand up for the man and tell the crowd stop booing him not a dirty fighter, have some respect for the man,” Poirier said. “... Just way he acted after that. Saying that I was trying to milk the knee, he tweeted me “are you finally off your stool yet’ just all kinds of stuff like that that was very disrespectful. This isn’t a bar fight. You don’t knee somebody in the head and expect the guy to just keep going like it didn’t hurt. He got me pretty good with that knee, and it could have changed the outcome of fight. This is a sport. There has to be some line drawn.”
Neither fighter has a bout booked at the moment, which means both a potentially free to have that long awaited rematch.
