Dustin Poirier believes Charles Oliveira could have done more to make weight at UFC 274: “They weren’t carrying him out. He wasn’t stumbling around”
Dustin Poirier believes Charles Oliveira could have done more to make weight at UFC 274.
Charles Oliveira (33-8 MMA) was forced to vacate his lightweight belt after he missed the 155 pound mark by 1/2 a pound at weigh-ins prior to his UFC 274 title fight against Justin Gaethje (23-4 MMA). The Arizona commission did give the Brazilian an extra hour to bring down his weight, but Oliveira was unsuccessful in doing so. While the fight went on and Oliveira defeated Gaethje in Round 1 on May 7th, the championship title was no longer his.
Dustin Poirier in speaking on ‘The Fight with Teddy Atlas’ believes the commission should use a digital scale for fighter weigh-in’s saying (h/t MMAJunkie):
“We need to be on digital scales so there’s no grey area. You can’t have a guy there tapping a weight-balance scale and it’s kind of balancing, and he just says it’s a half pound or whatever. We need exact numbers. You get on a digital scale, it shows up on the screen, that’s your actual weight. I don’t like the fact that these guys are tapping this balance scale.”
Continuing, Dustin Poirier believes Charles Oliveira could have pushed more to lose that 1/2 lb saying:
“They weren’t carrying him out. He wasn’t stumbling around. He’s always really lean, and he’s long and tall, so he looks slim. He’s a big guy, but he didn’t look like he needed to be helped. He still had life in his body. He could have, it looked like, tried to lose more weight. It’s a championship fight.”
Dustin Poirier (28-7 MMA) lost to Charles Oliveira back in December 2021 at UFC 269. As for what is next for the lightweight fighter, he’s hoping to get back in the cage with Nate Diaz (21-13 MMA), and while both have agreed verbally to the match-up, the UFC has yet to make the fight official.
Do you agree with Poirier that the UFC commission should convert to digital scales for fighter weigh-ins?
