Dustin Poirier’s coach admits he’s the “most stressful” fighter to corner ahead of UFC 302 return

Dustin Poirier’s head coach admits that the former UFC interim lightweight champion is a hard athlete to coach mid-fight.

Poirier will face UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev in the UFC 302 main event this Saturday in Newark. This is Poirier’s third lineal lightweight title shot after losses to Charles Oliveira and Khabib Nurmagomedov.

Poirier earned the UFC 302 main event slot after a knockout of Benoît Saint-Denis at UFC 299. Before that, he was knocked out by Justin Gaethje at UFC 291, but his knockout at UFC 299 was enough to get him a third chance at the title.

Poirier’s win over Saint-Denis featured a series of relentless guillotine choke attempts leading up to the knockout blows. This was directly in contrast to his corner’s advice in between rounds, but Poirier nearly secured the choke anyway.

Coach Mike Brown gives honest insight into cornering Dustin Poirier

In a recent interview with CBS Sports‘s Shakiel Mahjouri, American Top Team-Florida coach Mike Brown was asked where Poirier ranks amongst his most stressful fighters to corner.

“He’s No. 1, by far,” Brown said of Poirier. “By a long shot. But I also care about it, so the more you care, the more you’re going to be stressed. [Dustin] can make it harder on himself sometimes, and he’s his own guy. At the end of the day, he does what he wants to do. When he has something in his head, he’s going to do it, like the guillotine [at UFC 299] is a good example. If he wants to jump the guillotine, he’s going to…

“He’s great at what he does and he does have a good guillotine,” Brown acknowledged of Poirier. “They were damn close in that fight, but you also could’ve knocked him out [earlier]. Every time you hit him, you hurt him…every time you jump, you’re underneath and you’re putting yourself in a bad position. So it’s just a percentage game. Yeah, you can finish him, but we want to play the percentages.”

Brown, who transitioned full-time from a fighting career to coaching, has been in Poirier’s corner for the majority of his UFC tenure. He’s been front-and-center at some of Poirier’s most memorable performances, including his back-to-back finishes of Conor McGregor in 2021.

Poirier has jokingly hinted at attempting guillotines against Makhachev at UFC 302, and if he does, expect Brown to have a visibly stressed look in his corner,