At UFC 230, the co-main event was supposed to be Dustin Poirer taking on Nate Diaz. Diaz was set to make his long-awaited return to the Octagon against Poirer. However, just weeks ahead of UFC 230, UFC fans got devastating news. Poirer had to withdraw from the event due to an injury.
Speaking with Luke Thomas on the MMA Hour, Poirer revealed the injury was his hip. An injury that has been bothering him for quite some time.
“This is something I’ve been dealing with the last few camps, and it just progressively got worse,” Poirier said. “And then I did something with it this camp to where you know, like, I can still move around on it, I can still train, but if, say, I do a sprint, the next two days my range of motion is going to be horrible and I’m going to be in a lot of pain. It just got too bad to keep pushing at this point with it.”
Ultimately, Poirier is not one to pull out of a fight, as the lightweight contender has not pulled out of a fight in years. He goes into fight week, and into fights with injuries, aches, and pains, but the hip injury was just too much for Poirer.
“Of course every fighter, whether they admit it or not, they have aches and pains and they go into fights hurt,” Poirier added. “If you’re training for a fight, you’re going to be pretty much, there’s going to be days where you’re hurting. Normal pain is no problem, that just comes with the job. But this actually got to the point where it was stopping me from doing the kind of training sessions I needed to be doing, and like I said, range of motion, internal rotation, a lot of stuff was just really really bothering me and it’s time to get something done about it.”
It was quite disappointing to see Poirier pull out of the Diaz fight. For Poirier, it was going to be one of his biggest fights in the Octagon to date. However, on the good side, Poirer doesn’t expect the injury to keep him sidelined for long.
“One week we got one doctor’s opinion, the next week I’m flying out to LA to get another scan and another opinion. If the second doctor agrees with the first, I think it will be a pretty quick return,” he said. “We’re just going to do some stem cell stuff. I think I’ll be moving around real quick, so, I don’t think I’ll be out long at all.”
Once Poirer returns who would you like to see him fight, PENN Nation?
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 10/15/2018