Poirier: Criticizing fans don’t understand how contracts work

Dustin Poirier was scheduled to fight Nate Diaz in the co-main event of UFC 230 on November 3 at Madison Square Garden, but withdrew due to a leg injury. During a recent appearance on The MMA Hour, Poirier detailed the fight negotiations and fan reactions to his pulling out.

A lot of these fans are blowing me up on social media saying you blew an opportunity, your big payday and stuff like that, they don’t understand how contracts work, said Poirier, as transcribed by Dan Hiergesell for MMA Mania. I don’t get PPV points to fight Nate Diaz. I don’t know what anyone thinks is going on here, but, I took this fight not because it was a big-money fight, but because it was a big opportunity. It’s a huge headache with all the stuff that he was playing.

We don’t even have enough time to talk about all the times it was changed. The fight was on, it was off, it was just crazy, there was a lot of crazy stuff going on.

They wanted to switch it to five rounds, man, it was just so messed up dude. Nate was being hard to deal with, I believe. Every weight class they offered it at 155 and he wanted 160 and I agreed to that. He kind of negotiated himself out of a main-event spot. They offered us the main event, I accepted, Nate over-negotiated, they lost the main event, it was just back-to-back days of him trying to have his way, honestly.

So what’s next?

I have my eyes on everybody man, honestly, Poirier said. Like I said after my last fight, I want big fights, my goal is to be the world champion. So whatever fight makes sense. I felt like this Nate fight makes sense. If the UFC can get him to play ball, maybe we’ll do it, if not, we’ll see what shakes out, man and what’s next, but I need big fights.

UFC 230 is headlined by champ champ Daniel Cormier defending the heavyweight belt vs. Derrick Lewis, and after yet another change, the co-main will be former middleweight champion Chris Weidman vs. former title contender ‘Jacare’ Souza.