Outside Source
Dustin Poirier apparently had no grappling practice for over two weeks leading up to his UFC 302 title challenge against Islam Makhachev.
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Poirier made his third career lightweight gold bid against Makhachev in the main event at UFC 302 on Saturday. While many initially gave Poirier only a puncher’s chance and expected him to be dominated on the ground, “The Diamond” authored a surprising performance. Poirier gave his opponent a difficult test, denying Makhachev on multiple takedown attempts over the course of the bout. While Makhachev eventually submitted Poirier with a brabo choke in the final round, the Dagestani had to struggle more than expected.
What makes Poirier’s performance even more awe-inspiring is that he had no wrestling practice two weeks prior to fight night due to a rib injury. Yves Edwards, Poirier’s longtime teammate at American Top Team, made the revelation even though he knows “The Diamond” probably wouldn’t have wanted him to.
“The way he performed on Saturday night man, that was super impressive to me,” Edwards told MMAonSiriusXM. “And nobody knows this and he probably is gonna be like, ‘Man why did you put that out there?’ But like, I know Makhachev was also not a 100%, nobody goes into a fight a 100%. But like, [Dustin] hurt his ribs two weeks before the fight and hadn’t wrestled and grappled for like two, two and half weeks. For me it’s impressive man, against that guy. Against somebody else it wouldn’t have mattered but against that guy, like you wrestled like that against that guy with hurt ribs, okay, I’m impressed.”
Edwards further revealed that Poirier’s rib wasn’t completely healed even on fight night. According to Edwards, it’s not uncommon for elite fighters to go into fights with small issues that they have to navigate around. However, what stood out for Edwards in Poirier’s case was the performance that he put on against the caliber of competition that he faced.
“No [it wasn’t completely healed on fight night],” Edwards said. “Of course it wasn’t like, ‘I can’t fight.’ But it’s something you gonna have to work around, right… But like everybody does that, Makhachev’s fought with injuries, [Justin] Gaethje’s fought with injuries. Everybody does this at the highest level but the injury and the opponent, those two things combined and then the performance, man for me that says a lot.”
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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