Dustin Poirier reflects on UFC 242 loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov
Dustin Poirier had a shot to become the UFC’s undisputed lightweight champion but came up short. In the main event of UFC 242 he was submitted in the third round.
Now, after the fight, Poirier reflected on the loss and wondered if he could do more.
“I’m familiar with adversity,” Poirier said at the post-fight press conference. “It’s just I have to live the rest of my life asking myself if I could have done more, if I could have maybe escaped some of those takedowns. If I could have pushed harder when I had my underhooks against the fence. Those are the questions that will haunt me. I’ve lost before.”
Meanwhile, Dustin Poirier knows he was well prepared for this fight. But, Khabib Nurmagomedov is just too good.
Yet, he still ponders what could have been if he did somethings in the fight differently.
“The guy’s good, man. He’s the world champ, Poirier said. “Maybe I could have done more. You know, hindsight’s 20/20. I was very prepared for this fight, to fight 25 minutes. He did exactly what I thought he was going to do. Of course, I’m going to beat myself up and I’m the only one who has to deal with this, me and my family. I’m just wondering if maybe against the fence, when I got underhooks, if I could have tried a little bit harder to get off the fence maybe. But that’s just the questions that I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life. I thought for sure he was winning the rounds. Taking me down and dominating, but I felt like he was squeezing hard, we were getting slicker, I felt like he was getting a little weaker.
“Coming into this fight I thought later in the third, fourth, and fifth were going to be my rounds. Not that I was planning on giving up the first two, but I knew they were gonna be tough. So coming back to the stool after each of those rounds, in the beginning I wasn’t getting damaged a whole lot with shots that were hurting, he cut me. I thought the deeper we got into the fight, the more slick I was gonna be able to be. That’s fighting, man, this stuff is tough.”
