The ‘Human Highlight’ Justin Gaethje was last seen inside the UFC octagon on March 18th at UFC 286 where he fought and dominatingly defeated top lightweight contender Rafael Fiziev via majority decision. Many recently are speculating a mega lightweight showdown between him and Dustin Poirier
A rematch between Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje, two of the most elite lightweight combatants in the sport, has been demanded by many in the MMA community. Gaethje claims that Poirier turned down the chance to compete as his opponent in The Ultimate Fighter season 31 which was later coached by the ‘Notorious’ Conor Mcgregor and Michael Chandler.
Well-known manager Ali Abdelaziz gave a brief reason for the failure of Gaethje vs Poirier “Listen- Gaethje- we got [an] offer to do The Ultimate Fighter with Poirier. I respect Dustin Poirier. I think he’s one of the legends in the sport but it wasn’t the right time for him. Gaethje went and fought Fiziev and beat him.”
Earlier Gaethje had himself detailed the offer UFC gave him to coach TUF 31. Gaethje appearing for an interview with Daniel ‘DC’ Cormier had said “Before I signed the Fiziev fight, they asked if I wanted to do The Ultimate Fighter against Poirier, and he said no. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t do it if I was him when you’ve got that much money. What, you’re going to pay me $80,000 to go f**king six weeks away from my family? No thanks.”
Justin Gaethje vs Dustin Poirier II match-up
Gaethje previously squared off against Poirier back in 2018. The fight as expected was a freaking war and earned the fight of the night honor. Poirier in that fight got his hand raised via stoppage at round four. Since then both the fighters have pondered around the top five of the 155lbs division but have surprisingly not faced each since then.
Currently, Poirier and Gaethje are ranked 2 and 3 in the lightweight division and are expected to go after the UFC gold for one last time in their career.
Poirier had previously hinted at a step-up in weight class but as of now, it seems like ‘The Diamond’ is happy to hang around at 155. Poirier hasn’t competed in little over six months as a certainly looking for a fight.
An encounter with Gaethje seems to be the best match-up for him at this point, it would attract big numbers as well as fuel his championship aspirations and it works the same way for Gaethje as well.
