Las Vegas — This weekend, Lafayette Louisiana’s own, Dustin Poirier (25-6 MMA, 17-5 UFC), will be taking on the New Zealander, Dan Hooker (20-8 MMA, 10-4 UFC), on UFC on ESPN 12 at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ahead of his fight, Dustin Poirier spoke with ESPN’s Jon Anik, to talk about how training camp went and how his mindset is going into Saturday night.
As of late, there has been a lot of talk on whether the smaller 25-foot UFC octagon plays a role in how fights play out. While many people agree that the smaller cage does in fact result in more exciting fights for the fans, it is not the octagon that many top level fighters are accustomed to fighting and training in.
Anik was able to get Poirier’s thoughts on how he will be approaching the fight, knowing that it will be taking place in a smaller octagon.
This is what he said.
“Mike (Brown) and I were just talking about that,” said Poirier. “He cornered Amanda Nunes, and came back and said it’s a big difference, it’s like the old WEC cage. But I wanna fight,” he added. “There’s a lot of finishes happening in these small cages, and I’m coming to finish this guy, and I’m coming to fight.”
As for his opponent, Poirier is expecting the best Dan Hooker yet.
“I think he’s a very patient fighter,” Poirier told Anik. “He listens to his corner well, I’m not sure if they’re game planning or what not, but he seems to be very patient and strategic when he’s in there. So, I’m expecting a very smart, intelligent fighter. He’s long, (uses) range, likes to stay on the outside, dangerous knees, a great guillotine. He does a few things very well, but I do everything well, and I’m coming in there to win.”
As for right now, Poirier is only looking as far as Saturday night against Hooker. All other future fight talks will have to wait until Saturday’s main event has concluded.
“Right now, I can’t even think about (future fights), I have to be focused on 25 minutes with Dan Hooker,” he said to Anik. “If I don’t focus on that, I’m disrespecting the art of what I need to do here in a couple weeks, and I just can’t do that. This is a dangerous guy, who’s a top 5 fighter for a reason, and we’ll see what happens after this fight.”
This is a big fight for the UFC’s lightweight division as the match up will be between the fourth and fifth ranked fighters in the weight class.
One or two wins after this, and either of these two could find themselves right in the mix of title contention.
