Dustin Poirier’s final UFC fight week is here.
The former UFC interim lightweight champion is set to retire from MMA in the main event of UFC 318. The pay-per-view card was built around Poirier’s ‘last dance’, which takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana—the Lafayette native’s first home game since Yancy Medeiros in 2015.
Poirier’s final fight is a trilogy bout with BMF champion Max Holloway, who’s 0-2 against ‘The Diamond’.
Dustin Poirier looks to end his 40+ fight career on a high note, but one of his former foes has expressed concern for his retirement fight on Saturday night.
- READ MORE: Max Holloway landed 447 shots in record-breaking beatdown of contender whose career never recovered
Eddie Alvarez doesn’t think Dustin Poirier should have announced retirement ahead of UFC 318
Like Holloway, Eddie Alvarez has shared the Octagon with Poirier twice—both times unsuccessful.
Alvarez is very much looking forward to the trilogy fight between Poirier and Holloway, however, the former UFC champion wishes Poirier would have done things differently in the lead-up.
“Personally, I don’t like when a guy says, ‘I’m done. I’m retiring,’ and then goes and proceeds to fight,” Alvarez said of Poirier’s retirement fight in an interview with The Schmo.
“I don’t like that.”
Poirier has been contemplating retirement since the Conor McGregor trilogy fight in 2021 and confirmed his next fight would be his last one after losing to Islam Makhachev at UFC 302 last summer.
“I’ve never actually seen it go well for someone who announces they’re going to retire, goes out there, puts on the performance of a lifetime, and then walks off into the sunset. Rarely do you see that,” Alvarez said.
“I don’t love that this is the situation we’re going into. I’d rather Dustin had stayed quiet about retirement, just gone in there, fought, and then maybe retired afterward or something like that…”
Is Eddie Alvarez retired from fighting?
Former champion Eddie Alvarez suffered a broken jaw in his last fight, a BKFC main event loss against Jeremy Stephens at KnuckleMania 5 in his hometown of Philadelphia.
This brought Alvarez to back-to-back losses in BKFC, with some calling for ‘The Underground King’ to retire.
Following the TKO loss in January, Alvarez has been focusing on coaching the new generation of fighters, his ‘Underground Kings’ at his gym, Newtown Performance Institute.
When asked about continuing his combat sports future, Alvarez told Mike Bohn he’s currently ‘open to whatever’ at 41, leaving the door open on fighting.