UFC lightweight veteran Dustin Poirier is currently gearing up for arguably the biggest fight of his professional MMA career, where he will fight former UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez in a highly anticipated showdown at UFC 211 on May 13th.

In the fight, Poirier will be looking to build on his recent majority decision win over Jim Miller at UFC 208, which saw him bounce back from a September KO loss to Michael Johnson, which snapped a 4-fight win streak that saw ‘Diamond’ quickly climb the UFC lightweight rankings. On the other hand, Eddie Alvarez will be looking to bounce back from his recent UFC 205 loss to Conor McGregor, where he was TKOd in the 2nd round to lose his lightweight title.

Poirier spoke to MMAJunkie to discuss the fight, and why he feels a win over the former champ put him extremely close to a title shot:

“A win over Eddie Alvarez would put me right there fighting for the title,”

“That would put me at 6-1 in the lightweight division with a win over the former champ,” Poirier said. “It’s not like I’m a guy who just stumbled into the top 10. … I’ve been in title eliminator fights before at featherweight. I’m not a new guy to the block, and I’ve been putting in work.

“This guy was just a champion. If I go out there and put a stamp on Eddie Alvarez, I think I’m one win away.”

Of course, with Poirier currently sitting at #9 on the UFC’s official lightweight rankings, and Alvarez sitting at #3, behind champion Conor McGregor, #1 contender Khabib Nurmagomedov, and #2 ranked Tony Ferguson, a win over Alvarez could very well see Poirier’s name thrown in the mix of top 155 pound contenders. With Conor McGregor’s absence however, Poirier’s presence in the 155 pound title mix could make things interesting in the already stacked division.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 3/25/2017.