Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) may have given Dustin Poirier a worthy fight against Max Holloway in his home state of Louisiana for his retirement, but it didn’t give “The Diamond” everything he wanted.
Not even close.
Indeed, Poirier was shooting for something extremely special and unique for his final fight … or in his mind, his final fights.
“I was in [Dana White’s] office maybe six, seven months ago telling him, ‘Hey, let’s do a BMF tournament,’” Poirier said on the Ariel Helwani Show. “And I pitched me, [Justin] Gaethje, Max [Holloway] and Dan Hooker … But, I he thought I was talking about a few months tournament where the guys fight each other, then a few months later they fight again.
“I was talking about a one-night tournament,” he added. “He told me nobody would sanction that.”
One night tournaments used to be all the rage in the early days of mixed martial arts (MMA). Original UFC events were all one-night tournaments where fighters would compete three times in an eight-man tournament. PRIDE would later perfect the format by holding just the semis and the finals on the same night.
Poirier clearly drew some inspiration from them, because he suggested PRIDE ruleset for the tournament, too.
“I would be totally down with doing the ten minute first round,” he said. “If they wouldn’t allow one night, five rounds each fight, or even one night tournament, three rounds each fight. It would be too many MMA rounds in one night for a guy. I would do one long one, personally. I thought it would be a cool idea.”
One night tournaments aren’t explicitly banned in the United States. Arizona sanctioned a World Series of Fighting (WSOF) one-night, eight-man tournament in 2015, with the winner getting a shot at then-champion, Justin Gaethje.
PFL did semis and finals in one night back in 2018 under California’s commission. And in 2022, Colorado allowed Invicta to hold an old school eight-woman, one-night tournament.
The fighters clearly yearn for the return of the old school MMA tournament.
“Bring back one-night tournaments to MMA,” declared Josh Barnett, who participated in the PRIDE 2006 Heavyweight Grand Prix. “Stop all the bulls—ting and crybaby stance of not doing them. These athletes are more than capable of handling the strain of it and literally EVERY combat sport has one or even multiple day tournaments.”
“BRING THEM BACK!”
We agree, Josh. But alas, what would deviating from the cookie cutter norm do to UFC’s profit margin? Possibly shrink it a tiny bit? Won’t somebody think of the investors?
To checkout UFC’s upcoming schedule of events click here.
