UFC Champ Dustin Poirier returns to Louisiana for one last fight
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - All good things must come to an end.
On Saturday night (July 19), a fighting legend will hang up his gloves but not before one final fight in his home state of Louisiana.
Lafayette native Dustin Poirier will return to New Orleans for the first time in nearly a decade to face off against featherweight Max Holloway.
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In what will be a full-circle moment, the last time Poirier was in New Orleans, he was just a scrappy prospect from Cajun country trying to make a name for himself. Since then, he’s become a champion and a likely future Hall of Famer.
As Poirier tells Fox 8 ahead of Saturday’s fight, he used his star power to force the UFC’s hand, bringing MMA back to the Smoothie King Center for his retirement.
“I didn’t know if it was going to happen when I asked Dana White and the guys at the UFC...they haven’t been here in over ten years,” Poirier said. “To lay the gloves down in Louisiana, where I started training to and started fighting at a very young age... to have family and friends who can’t make these long trips for some of these fights...to have them drive down from Lafayette and be in attendance is very important to me.”
Poirier isn’t the only Louisiana fighter on the card for saturday. Top 15 middleweight Brendan Allen, who’s been in the UFC for years, lives on the North Shore in Covington with his family, just a Causeway drive away from the SKC.
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