Dustin Poirier still has fighting on his mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Diamond\u201d retired this past July at UFC 318 in his home state of Louisiana following a trilogy bout with longtime rival Max Holloway, the culmination of a 41-fight career that saw Poirier become one of the most beloved fighters in MMA history and a one-time interim lightweight champion.<\/p>\n
At the time, Poirier appeared to be content with his decision, but he tweeted Saturday evening that his love of the game is as strong as ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery day, the moment my eyes open,\u201d Poirier wrote in response to a commenter asking if he missed fighting. \u201cI\u2019ve done it for two decades, dedicated my life to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cA part of me has died.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poirier, 36, took his first pro bout in 2009 and compiled a 7-0 record before joining the WEC and later the UFC, where he quickly rose through the featherweight ranks. Though he never fought for a title in that division, he scored several notable victories, including a first-round submission of future rival Max Holloway, before turning his attention to lightweight.<\/p>\n
It was at 155 pounds that Poirier truly established his legacy. Starting in 2015, he went on a 9-1 (1 NC) run, defeating Holloway again at UFC 236 to win an interim belt before falling to Khabib Nurmagomedov in a championship unification bout at UFC 242. Poirier continued to rack up Fight of the Night awards and Performance of the Night bonuses after that and also scored a pair of high-profile wins over Conor McGregor.<\/p>\n
Poirier also responded to several messages from fans yesterday, letting them know how much he misses making that walk to the octagon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dustin Poirier still has fighting on his mind. \u201cThe Diamond\u201d retired this past July at UFC 318 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-208714","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}