Dustin Poirier's future is a little unclear after his loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov on Sept. 7 at UFC 242. After falling short of his UFC lightweight championship aspirations in Abu Dhabi, Poirier is intent on fighting his way back to the top -- but for the time being, his next opponent is still to be determined.
In the meantime, Poirier took advantage of a little downtime to attend the light heavyweight title unification fight between Artur Beterbiev and Oleksandr Gvozdyk in Philadelphia. While Poirier has become a world-class fighter in the world of MMA, he originally trained to become a boxer before changing course.
During a break in the action on Friday, ESPN caught up with Poirier to talk about Conor McGregor, Poirier's teammate Jorge Masvidal and whether or not Poirier would ever consider stepping into a boxing ring.
What do you think about Conor McGregor wanting to fight Frankie Edgar and not you?
I didn't think a whole lot of it. Frankie's a tough guy and a great champion, but I think he lost his last two fights and was planning on moving down to 135 pounds. All respect to Frankie, but it's kind of maybe a more favorable fight, McGregor might have thought.
Do you think Conor is dodging you?
I don't think the guy is scared to fight anybody. I don't know if he's dodging me necessarily, but he might be trying to get the best matchup for himself, possibly. It's tough to say -- the fight was never on the table. We were never offered the fight, I was just pushing for it. Still hoping to get it.
What do you know about the BMF belt your teammate Jorge Masvidal is going to fight for at MSG? What does it look like?
I believe it's going to look just like the normal title, except instead of UFC it's going to say BMF on it. I know that my boy Jorge is working hard, he's got some great guys in camp helping him out and he's going to be ready to take that belt home.
How much money was ultimately raised for charity by selling the fight-worn gear from the Khabib fight?
Khabib raised $100K, Dana matched it, and I sold mine for $60K. So that's $260K right there just on fight-worn gear. And then also, with outside donations, we really raised a lot of money. We're adding a few more wells for the [Batwa] pygmy people, and we also bought them 30 acres of land to move their tribe on.
Any thoughts of pursuing boxing in the future?
I love boxing, and I would love the opportunity to show my skill set in boxing and my understanding of boxing.
I was training boxing before I was ever training mixed martial arts. I ran into some guys at a boxing gym who were mixed martial artists working on their boxing, and then I went to their gym the weekend after and started doing mixed martial arts. Boxing is a passion of mine.