ATLANTA – Title fights don’t get much better than the two we saw Saturday night at UFC 236.
And if you’re going to start in with the whole “But it was just an interim title fight” argument, then feel free to amend and say fights, period, don’t get much better than the two we saw atop UFC 236.
When all-time classic fights culminate with legitimate shows of respect from the fighters, they seem even better. And that appears to be the case with Dustin Poirier and Max Holloway.
Poirier (25-5 MMA, 17-4 UFC) took a unanimous decision from Holloway (20-5 MMA, 16-5 UFC) in the UFC 236 main event to win the interim lightweight title and move on to an eventual unification bout against champ Khabib Nurmagomedov. He also denied Holloway, the UFC’s featherweight titleholder, his shot at becoming a two-division champion.
Today, in the aftermath of a loss that left him battered and bloodied after 25 minutes in his rematch with Poirier, Holloway posted a tribute to his opponent on Twitter.
And Holloway used Poirier’s nickname, “The Diamond,” for a pretty solid closing line.
“Life is chutes and ladders,” Holloway posted. “Sometimes we gotta take that slide down to get to the next big ladder. It is what it is. We keep playing. We keep fighting. Congrats to Dustin and Jolie. They should’ve already had a belt. Diamonds are forever.”
UFC 236 took place Saturday at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. The main card aired on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.
There’s no timeline yet for Poirier’s title unifier with Nurmagomedov, though the champ late Saturday mentioned September. Holloway presumably will return to 145 pounds, where he has a title he still can defend.
For complete coverage of UFC 236, check out the UFC Events section of the site.
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