{"id":15570,"date":"2025-07-22T14:09:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T14:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/15570\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T14:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T14:09:07","slug":"alan-jouban-argues-dustin-poirier-was-always-the-uncrowned-bmf-champion-his-strength-of-schedule-alone-warrants-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/15570\/","title":{"rendered":"Alan Jouban argues Dustin Poirier was always the \u2018uncrowned BMF champion\u2019: \u2019His strength of schedule alone warrants it\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dustin Poirier<\/a> retired this past Saturday night at UFC 318<\/a>, but for all the ways he\u2019ll be remembered for the incredible wars he provided during his career, he never captured an undisputed title.<\/p>\n

But UFC analyst Alan Jouban<\/a> doesn\u2019t buy that Poirier shouldn\u2019t be remembered as a champion when looking at the ridiculous record he put together over the years. Most notably, Poirier holds wins over five former UFC champions not to mention a long list of ranked opposition in arguably the deepest and toughest division in the sport.<\/p>\n

Add to that, Jouban believes Poirier claiming the interim lightweight title back in 2019 still counts for something, especially because reigning champion Khabib Nurmagomedov<\/a> was on the shelf after being suspended for a post-fight brawl following his win over Conor McGregor<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of people echo they realize Dustin never had the undisputed championship belt. But when you really sit back and look at it, he had the interim belt,\u201d Jouban said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. \u201cWhat was going on at the time, he fought Max Holloway<\/a> in Atlanta, Ga., because what was going on? Khabib [Nurmagomedov] took time off after the incident [with Conor McGregor] so rather than stripping Khabib, which with all respect to him they should have, the guy didn\u2019t defend his belt for over a year or something, it should have been an undisputed belt on the line.<\/p>\n

\u201cHim and Israel Adesanya<\/a> [when he fought Kelvin Gastelum<\/a>], both have had that same remark about it, that should have been for the real belt that night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of interim versus undisputed, Jouban feels like Poirier\u2019s record as a whole separates him from almost every other fighter who\u2019s ever competed in the sport.<\/p>\n

Poirier fought top contender after top contender and holds wins over the vast majority of them. He may not have ended his career with the \u201cBMF\u201d title around his waist after a third fight with Max Holloway but Jouban knows Poirier still deserved it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my mind, he\u2019s kind of the uncrowned \u2018BMF\u2019 champion because look at who he has wins over,\u201d Jouban explained. \u201cHe has two wins over Max Holloway. He has wins over Justin Gaethje<\/a>. Wins over Michael Chandler<\/a>. That was the violent triangle at one point, that was the most violent \u2018BMF\u2019 type guys in the UFC and Dustin beat all of those guys. Two wins over Conor. The first guy to knock Conor out. Two wins over Conor McGregor.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou start looking at other possible \u2018BMF\u2019 type fights. The Dan Hooker<\/a> fight in COVID, one of my favorite violent fights of all-time. He has wins over so many guys but the circumstances weren\u2019t for the \u2018BMF\u2019 at the time. Two wins over Max Holloway but the third one when he was 36 years old, when the belt [was on the line]. You look at all the former champions that he beat. The Anthony Pettis<\/a>,\u2019 the Conor McGregor\u2019s, Eddie Alvarez<\/a>, he beat all these guys that were champions but at the time he fought them, he didn\u2019t have the belt.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the \u201cBMF\u201d title was first introduced, it was effectively a fun and imaginative way to sell a fight between Jorge Masvidal<\/a> and Nate Diaz<\/a>, who both possessed that \u201canyone, anywhere, any time\u201d philosophy when it came to their careers. Both were also known for putting on ultra-exciting fights even if neither of them were able to win a championship.<\/p>\n

Jouban doesn\u2019t see anybody who embodies that old school spirit more than Poirier, especially when looking at the murderer\u2019s row of fighters he faced over the years and just because he never claimed the undisputed title doesn\u2019t diminish his accomplishments.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at strength of schedule,\u201d Jouban said. \u201cStrength of schedule, I\u2019ve always said this, Dustin Poirier is at the top of the heap. Aside from Jon Jones<\/a> just because he\u2019s the best and he\u2019s beaten all the champions. Dustin Poirier is No. 2 on my list of strength of schedule, the toughest fights in the UFC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 155-pound division has always reigned supreme and they\u2019ve always had the biggest stars, \u2018BMF\u2019 lies there as well. The toughest fighters, the most competitive division with the most fighters in the stable and he has ran through all the toughest guys since he has been in the UFC for 15 years. His strength of schedule alone warrants it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poirier competed for the undisputed UFC lightweight title twice during his career but came up short both times.<\/p>\n

That still doesn\u2019t tell the complete story about Poirier\u2019s remarkable career and it\u2019s difficult not to consider him one of the \u201cbaddest motherf*ckers\u201d of all time.<\/p>\n

\u201cRespect to all these other guys, he\u2019s really the uncrowned \u2018BMF\u2019 in my mind because he\u2019s the one that has more wins over all these tough guys than anyone,\u201d Jouban said. \u201cDustin Poirier\u2019s strength of schedule is like no other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen to new episodes of The Fighter vs. The Writer every Tuesday with audio only versions of the podcast available on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Google Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, and iHeartRadio<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dustin Poirier retired this past Saturday night at UFC 318, but for all the ways he\u2019ll be remembered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[13806,13811,13809,13808,9578,49,48,13003,7408,641,700,9755,2182,13807,701,638,8076,2177,329,7409,10032,82,13810,1462,640,4455,702,8921,13812,2605],"class_list":["post-15570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-alan","tag-alone","tag-always","tag-argues","tag-bmf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-champion","tag-dustin","tag-fighting","tag-front-page","tag-his","tag-it","tag-jouban","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-mma-fighting-podcast-network","tag-of","tag-podcasts","tag-poirier","tag-schedule","tag-sports","tag-strength","tag-the","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-events-ppv","tag-ufc-news","tag-uncrowned","tag-warrants","tag-was"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}