Max Holloway was not happy to learn that he and Dustin Poirier missed out on Saturday’s Fight of the Night award, and its $50,000 prize.
The BMF title fight went all five rounds and saw both men dropped at different points in a main event that captivated the New Orleans crowd. But they were beaten to the award by Brendan Allen and Marvin Vettori’s emotionally-charged grudge fight on the prelims.
Between them, Holloway and Poirier have won 28 performance bonuses; the former getting 13 and the latter winning 15. However, on the former interim lightweight champion’s last day he was unable to add one more to the list.
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Max Holloway rages over losing out on UFC 318 performance bonus
In newly-released behind the scenes footage from UFC 318, Max Holloway could be seen meeting Dustin Poirier for the first time after their fight. The pair embraced and talked about their fight, but not before agreeing that they should have got the Fight of the Night award.
“Bro, how did we not get Fight of the Night?” Holloway can be seen asking Poirier, who seems similarly baffled. “No, it’s some bulls—, go tell f—ing Dana. Tell him he’s the f—ing man, kiss his a–. They gave it to freaking Allen and Vettori.”
This seemed to confuse Poirier, who likely would have had more to say than “no,” or “what” had Holloway given him time to talk. Instead, the Hawaiian continued on: “I don’t even know, we almost finished each other in the same damn round! What the hell, bro?”
The pair eventually seemed to calm down and could be seen embracing and discussing their various battle scars after the fact.
Max Holloway handed Dustin Poirier defeat to close out epic trilogy
The first time Max Holloway and Dustin Poirier met in the octagon was February of 2012, over 13 years before they finally got to finish their trilogy. ‘The Diamond’ got a first round submission that time, but when they met seven years later it was a much closer battle.
Holloway came up to lightweight for their second meeting in April of 2019, which was for the interim 155lb title. He was featherweight champion at the time, but wasn’t able to bulk up properly and was overpowered through five rounds by Poirier.
But with proper preparation for their final meeting, Holloway was able to hit a rhythm and ended up winning their last dance. This one was for the ‘BMF’ title, which he won from Justin Gaethje in their famous UFC 300 clash.