One thing all fairy tale endings have in common is that they are imaginary.
Perhaps that sounds jaded, but it more often than not rings true in mixed martial arts.
In the UFC’s history, there have only been a few instances where fighters have left the arena with the elation of having a belt wrapped around their waist in their final fight and those moments belong to all-time greats: Georges St-Pierre, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Amanda Nunes.
On Saturday, Dustin Poirier has the chance to join that elite company if he can defeat Nurmagomedov’s protégé Islam Makhachev.
The odds are stacked against Poirier, both from a betting standpoint, where he is a near five-to-one underdog, and historically, where no fighter aged 35 or older has won a championship bout in the lightweight division or below.
Overcoming the odds would only tell part of the story, as Poirier, a former interim champion, has fallen short in both of his previous attempts to become the undisputed lightweight champion.
Earning this third opportunity seemed highly unlikely roughly 10 months ago when Poirier was knocked out by a Justin Gaethje head kick at UFC 291 last July.
However, the stars have aligned for Poirier since then. After he defeated surging prospect Benoit Saint Denis in March, with both Charles Oliveira and Gaethje losing their respective bouts at UFC 300 and top contender Arman Tsarukyan declining the UFC’s offer to face Makhachev six weeks after defeating Oliveira, Poirier was the last viable contender standing and jumped at what is considered his final opportunity to capture undisputed UFC gold.
With that opportunity came the potential for one of the greatest triumphs of the human spirit that would culminate in a folk hero like Poirier being able to retire after achieving his biggest goal and riding off into the sunset as the undisputed lightweight champion by defeating the top pound-for-pound fighter in the sport.
It would be a moment that would carry a great degree of sentimentality for the fight fans that have watched Poirier rise from being a young professional fighter profiled in the Fightville documentary to becoming the undisputed champion in the world’s biggest mixed martial arts promotion.
While the grandeur of that outcome is a wonderful narrative to envision, the cold reality of mixed martial arts is that few careers play out in this fashion.
The middleweight championship had always eluded Michael Bisping and while he experienced the triumph of becoming champion by beating Luke Rockhold, who had easily defeated Bisping in their previous meeting, Bisping stuck around for a bit too long, losing to St-Pierre and then suffering a brutal knockout loss weeks later against Kelvin Gastelum, after which he retired on a losing streak.
It was an incredible story, until it wasn’t and that is typical in this brutal and competitive sport where there are rarely soft landings for veteran fighters.
Henry Cejudo was also briefly a part of that group of champions when he retired in 2020 as men’s bantamweight champion, however he returned to competition last year and is 0-2 since then.
Poirier’s kryptonite at the highest level has been fighters with similar skills to Makhachev with his first title loss coming at the hands of Makhachev’s mentor Nurmagomedov, a dominant grappler, and the second coming to a submission ace in Oliveira. Makhachev happens to be both a dominant grappler and submission ace and Poirier, now 35, also has 39 professional bouts under his belt.
Storylines like this are what make mixed martial arts carry so much intrigue. The stakes are incredibly high for both athletes, but specifically for Poirier the weight and pressure that comes with his final opportunity to take his greatness to the next level makes UFC 302’s main event a bout that should not be missed by anyone who revels in the beauty of combat sports.