If Dustin Poirier is really considering a future at welterweight rather than lightweight, his head coach is 100 percent on board with the move.
Former WEC champion-turned-American Top Team coach Mike Brown has total faith that Poirier could not only compete at 170 pounds, but his body may actually be built for the bigger weight class. It may be odd to consider at this stage, as Poirier started his career in the UFC as a featherweight before becoming one of the best 155-pound fighters in the world, but Brown believes “The Diamond” has the size and power to give anybody problems if he makes the decision to start fighting at welterweight.
“He’s plenty big for welterweight,” Brown recently told MMA Fighting. “Plenty big, 155 [pounds] is getting real difficult to make. I’m not certain. He could be a better welterweight than a lightweight. Time will tell, but he’s definitely not small for a welterweight.”
Poirier — No. 2 at lightweight in MMA Fighting’s Global Rankings — has floated the idea of fighting at 170 pounds for the past couple of years, but he’s appeared more interested in the idea since suffering a loss to Charles Oliveira in his latest bid to become the undisputed UFC lightweight champion.
Following that fight, the Louisiana native admitted that while his weight cut down to 155 pounds wasn’t difficult, the overall process to fight at lightweight was not going to get any easier moving forward.
“I don’t know if I’m going to make that cut again,” Poirier told MMA Fighting in December. “I might never fight at 155 pounds again. I don’t know the future. I could have cut a few more pounds. I could have come in at 152 on this fight. My cut went so smooth, I felt great.
“But I don’t know if I want to go through that training camp again where I’m hungry everyday and competing in the gym and pushing myself on the low calories. We’ll see, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Poirier has recently been pushing for a fight against Nate Diaz, who’s primarily been fighting at welterweight since 2016 including wins over Conor McGregor and Anthony Pettis.
He’s also been the subject of callouts by two-time welterweight title challenger Colby Covington, although Poirier threw cold water over that matchup on Saturday.
Still, the Diaz fight could be the perfect entry into a new division if Poirier is seriously considering the move to welterweight, but for now, he’s awaiting word on his next fight.