UFC: Eddie Alvarez Refuses to Fight Poirier, Turns Down Fight Five Times

Surging lightweight contender Dustin ‘The Diamond ‘ Poirier and former lightweight champion Eddie ‘the Underground king’ Alvarez have some unfinished business.

They first met at UFC 211 in May 2017. This was Alvarez’a first fight after losing his title to ‘The Notorious’ Conor McGregor at UFC 205 in a disappointing fashion. Poirier came in with something to prove as well as this was one of those opportunities where he had a chance to fight someone who was at the top of the rankings. ‘The Diamond’ didn’t disappoint as he was seemingly getting the better of the former champ. Things however took an unexpected toll, as Alvarez landed illegal knees to Poirier’s head o was a downed opponent, resulting the fight to be declared as a no contest. Needless to say Poirier was devastated as a victory against the former champ would have had into contention. Since then, Poirier has dented two top dogs of the lightweight division in Anthony Pettis and Justin Gaethje respectively and is on the verge of a title shot. On the latest edition of the MMA hour, Poirier explained that he was offered several rematches against Eddie Alvarez. While Poirier has been accepting the rematches, he claims Alvarez has been denying them all.

“Me and Eddie were offered a rematch on that Brooklyn show that Tony and Khabib were on. And my management told me that pretty much they’re probably trying to book this fight because if they fall out, one of you are going to replace them. I accepted the fight. Eddie turned it down. This was months ago. We could have been on that card, Eddie’s ranked higher than me, he probably would have fought for the belt a couple weekends ago.”
“It was offered a bunch of times, man,” Poirier said. “There were a bunch of cards that they offered the fight on. I accepted every time they offered it, Eddie turned it down every time. I think it was five times.”
“The things that he said after our fight, just the way he acted, I tried to stand up for the man and tell the crowd stop booing him not a dirty fighter, have some respect for the man. … Just way he acted after that. Saying that I was trying to milk the knee, he tweeted me “are you finally off your stool yet’ just all kinds of stuff like that that was very disrespectful. This isn’t a bar fight. You don’t knee somebody in the head and expect the guy to just keep going like it didn’t hurt. He got me pretty good with that knee, and it could have changed the outcome of fight. This is a sport. There has to be some line drawn.”