The UFC has done it again. It has become perfectly clear that there is no such thing as a “rule book for matchmaking”. Basically all that matters now is how many tickets you can sell and how many followers you have. It was revealed on Wednesday, by Dana White himself to Luke Thomas, that the UFC has already begun filming season 26 of The Ultimate Fighter. The coaches are the former UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez and newcomer Justin Gaethje.
The matchup itself actually looks good. Both men have a penchant for going forward and just brawling without worrying about the damage they take. Eddie is a former Bellator and UFC champion, while Justin arrived to the UFC as the lightweight champion for WSOF -now PFL. Gaethje holds an undefeated professional record of 18-0 with 15 victories by KO/TKO. So far everything looks good, but there is one man feeling he was left out of the equation -and rightfully so, his name: Dustin Poirier.
Dustin Poirier fought Eddie Alvarez in May at UFC 211 in an exciting bout that was controversially ruled a No Contest. ‘The Diamond’ was ready to make a statement out of Alvarez. Poirier was dominating the fight early on, making Eddie wobble left and right. Alvarez went into survival mode and somehow managed to stay in the fight and even landed some power shots of his own. The fight became an exciting brawl between two men who seemed unwilling to go down. It all went out the window when Alvarez landed three illegal knees to Poirier’s head while he was grounded. Herb Dean stopped the fight and to the shock of most, instead of awarding a DQ victory to Poirier, the decision was No Contest.
During their octagon interviews, both men agreed to a rematch. While the crowd was booing Alvarez, Dustin stepped in and demanded respect for Eddie. Everything seemed set to work out just fine, but then it didn’t. With Dana’s announcemente, Dustin has been left out looking in and it feels unfair from any standpoint.
Besides being the right thing to do, the rematch between Eddie and Dustin was sure to make fans tune in after what they showed at UFC 211. Additionally, it could be argued that Dustin was winning the fight before the whole knee incident went down. As for Gaethje, the rumored possibility of him fighting Tony Ferguson sounded way more interesting than putting him in the reality and benching him for months to come. None of this makes sense to a division that has been on hold because of Conor McGregor’s whim to box, and Khabib’s weight-cutting problems. Unfortunately, for some reason, names like Tony Ferguson and Dustin Poirier seem to carry a lot less weight than what their performances deserve.
So what’s next for Dustin Poirier?
Rumors seem to point towards a fight against Kevin Lee, who currently is #7 in the official UFC rankings.
