Dustin Poirier has been one of the planet’s best lightweights for years now, and according to his coach, Mike Brow, that’s because ‘The Diamond’ is one of the most naturally gifted fighters he’s seen.
Brown heaps praise on Poirier
Leading up to UFC Vegas 4, the consensus seemed to be that Poirier would get past Dan Hooker. But, due to how ridiculously dangerous ‘The Hangman’ is, most people understood it was going to be a war, and it was.
Poirier took plenty of heavy shots in the fight, but he landed more and emerged from the thrilling fight with the decision win.
Well, since the bloody battle, Brown spoke with MMA Fighting. The former WEC champ and renowned coach didn’t hold back in heaping praise on the former lightweight interim champ.
“Maybe the most natural talent of anybody I’ve ever met,” Brown said about Poirier. “He’s up there. Amazing conditioning, strong mind, strong will and also power.
Punching power and also kicking power. He kicks like a mule. Something he hasn’t used a ton because he had a hip problem, he just had a hip surgery before this one to clean some stuff up and hopefully allow him to use it a little bit more.
“He started to [use it]. It was good to see him using that leg more, going to the body. I don’t know what it looked like on camera but live it was hard.
He was slinging that thing into his body, just smashing into the organs and that’s going to take the life out of you. That’s going to take that gas meter down pretty quick.”
Yup, there’s no question that Poirier has established himself as one of the most talented and rugged fighters on the UFC roster. After all, we’re talking about a guy whose only loss since 2016 came against the undefeated, Khabib Nurmagomedov.
During that run, Poirier’s defeated the likes of Eddie Alvarez, Justin Gaethje and Max Holloway. Pretty impressive stuff.
Conditioning was key
While breaking down the fight specifically, Brown noted that Poirier’s conditioning played a decisive role in the fight.
“Something we talked about was patience for sure. We know that Dustin is always going to be strong as the fight goes on and we knew Hooker tends to slow down.
He showed it in past fights. He’s very good early but as he slows down, his defense gets a little bit worse and you’re able to hit him a little bit more.
Where early on, when he’s full of energy, he’s able to use distance a little better and make you miss with those shots…
“His conditioning is as good as it gets,” Brown said about Poirier. “He hits as hard in the fifth [round] as he does in the first.
That’s one of his best attributes. He gets a lot of them out of there but I am 100 percent impressed with Hooker’s chin.”
Now it will be interesting to see who Poirier fights next. There seems to be some buzz for a bout with Tony Ferguson, and that sounds like a very good plan.
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