Dustin Poirier recently won a war with Michael Chandler, defeating the former Bellator lightweight champion by third-round submission after a grueling 12 minutes at UFC 281.
The victory keeps Poirier, a former interim champion, squarely in the 155-pound title picture despite the fact that he’s come up short twice before – against Khabib Nurmagomedov in September 2019 and Charles Oliveira in December 2021.
Chael Sonnen has a thought about Poirier at this point in his career: He’s no longer interested in being a UFC champion. Here’s his explanation:
“Dustin Poirier’s No. 1 goal right now is not to reclaim his championship. He wants to go into a category. It’s the elite of the elite. It’s a category so high that when you start training, you don’t even set a goal to do. There’s one more category above champion – one category, and that is when the outcome of your fight doesn’t matter. When you get to a level of popularity where the outcome of your match no longer matters. The next time you come out, the crowd will be sold out, and you will be in the main event. Even if you’re coming off of a loss, your next fight will be the main event. I’m talking about a Conor McGregor status.”
It’s an interesting thought when you consider that Poirier owns two recent victories over McGregor. So what do we think? Is Sonnen onto something?
Our “Spinning Back Clique” panel of Matt Wells, Mike Bohn and Brian “Goze” Garcia answered those questions with host “Gorgeous” George Garcia. You can watch their discussion in the video above and check out this week’s full episode below.
“Spinning Back Clique” is released each Monday LIVE on MMA Junkie’s YouTube channel.