Dustin Poirier is pushing back on the long-running narrative surrounding his canceled UFC 230 matchup with Nate Diaz, insisting he never pulled out of the fight and would still return from retirement to face Diaz.
Poirier and Diaz were scheduled to meet at UFC 230 in November 2018, but the bout was scrapped after Poirier injured his hip. Poirier now says the issue wasn’t his willingness to fight Diaz, but his refusal to face replacement opponents when negotiations with Diaz stalled.
"Man, I still want to whip Nate's ass," Poirier said while revisiting the canceled Madison Square Garden showdown. He added, "I'll come back to fight him because it got away, and he lied, and the fans were on his side. The UFC knew I was going to fight Nate in our first matchup at Madison Square Garden, but Nate was having trouble with his negotiation. I don't know what was going on, but UFC called me and said, 'Hey, we want to keep you on the Madison Square Garden card. Would you fight so-and-so?'"
According to Poirier, the UFC then moved on to other options. "They started offering me other people, and I said, 'Listen, if it's not Nate, I'm not fighting. I'm going to go and have my hip taken care of. If it's Nate, I'll fight.' It wasn't Nate. They offered me Kevin Lee. They offered me a few other names. I said, 'I'm going to go have surgery on my hip.' Then Nate used that as like I was the fall guy, like fight's off because I pulled out. But I never pulled out. I just didn't want to fight anyone but Nate."
Poirier is now retired, but maintains he would return to the UFC specifically to fight Diaz. Meanwhile, Diaz is scheduled to fight Mike Perry on May 16 on MVP's inaugural MMA card, which streams on Netflix from the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California.
