Dustin Poirier wants UFC lightweight title shot, but understands ‘Tony is next in line’

Dustin Poirier was briefly scheduled to battle Nate Diaz in the co-main event of last weekend’s UFC 230 card. Unfortunately, however, Poirier was forced out of this fight with an injury.

Speaking to MMAjunkie Radio this week, Dustin Poirier announced that he’ll soon be able to return to training, and that he’s hoping to get back into the cage as soon as possible.

“There’s going to be some more stuff to go through, but I’m cleared to start a camp here in the next few weeks, I’m sure,” he said. “I spoke to the doctor a couple days ago, he called just as a checkup and he said most of the time you see huge improvements like six-to-eight weeks out from stem cell injections and my body has taken to it real good already. I’m excited to see the six-week mark how good I’m going to be feeling.”

Currently riding a win streak composed of impressive defeats of Jim Miller, Anthony Pettis, Justin Gaethje and Eddie Alvarez, Dustin Poirier mostly certainly deserves a lightweight title shot. That being said, he understands that former interim lightweight champ Tony Ferguson probably deserves the next crack at reigning champ Khabib Nurmagomedov more. Poirier’s priority, given this reality, is simply getting the biggest fight possible for his next outing — whether it’s a rescheduled bout with Diaz or otherwise.

“I just want to do whatever I have to do to get the title shot, whatever I need to do to,” Poirier said. “That’s been my goal this whole time, but we’ll see. I haven’t spoke to the UFC about that’s next. I was seeing some stuff they were saying that they don’t want to try to rebook the Nate fight. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I’ll be ready to roll probably the end of January, early February, I’ll be ready to roll.”

“When I talk to them I’m going to say, ‘I want a title shot,’” he concluded. “But at the end of the day they make the offer and I have to choose what’s next. But I agree, Tony is next in line. We’ll see how all this shakes out. I just want a big fight, somebody at the top, and I want to be world champion.”

Who do you think Dustin Poirier should fight next?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 11/6/2018.