Dustin Poirier confirms he turned down title shot against Charles Oliveira at UFC 262

UFC lightweight contender Dustin Poirier confirmed that he turned down a potential 155lbs title shot against Charles Oliveira at UFC 262.

After knocking out Conor McGregor at UFC 257 in January, it was widely expected that Poirier would be in the next lightweight title fight after former champion Khabib Nurmagomedov retired and vacated his title. However, the UFC instead booked Oliveira against Michael Chandler for the vacant belt in the main event of UFC 262. That news surprised a lot of fans, who thought Poirier deserved the title shot. However, UFC president Dana White confirmed that Poirier turned down the title shot to fight McGregor in a trilogy. Considering how much money that fight is destined to produce, it made sense for Poirier to decline the title show in order to take the money trilogy fight against McGregor instead.

Taking to his social media on Friday during an impromptu AMA with his fans, Poirier confirmed what White said about turning down a title shot. However, we didn’t know who Poirier would have fought before now. According to “The Diamond,” Poirier was set to fight Oliveira for the vacant belt before rejecting it, which allowed Chandler to step in instead.

https://twitter.com/DustinPoirier/status/1378024938938990600

No i turned down Olivera you dumb f*ck

Poirier vs. Oliveira was the fight that many fans thought made sense for the next title fight considering Poirier is coming off of the big win over McGregor and Oliveira is riding an eight-fight win streak himself. When Chandler got the vacant title shot against Oliveira, it came as a surprise to a lot of fans considering he only has one fight in the Octagon, albeit a tremendous KO win over Dan Hooker at UFC 257. Now we know right from the man himself that Poirier was the one who turned down the fight with Oliveira for McGregor.

Do you think we will see Dustin Poirier and Charles Oliveira fight one day?