Dustin Poirier leapt on a jumping guillotine against Max Holloway at UFC 318 and although it didn’t work, he has no regrets about it. It was the final fight of Poirier’s career and it was also the trilogy fight between him and Holloway, after he won their first two meetings. They first met all the way back in 2012 when they were both pretty new to the sport, and Poirier got the submission win with a triangle armbar. The rematch came about in 2019 and the stakes were much higher, with the interim UFC lightweight title on the line. Poirier won by decision this time around and given how exciting both of their first two fights were, there was no better final opponent for him than Holloway.
Holloway did significantly better this time around and won most of the rounds, but got dazed with a volley late in the second round. Rather than try to finish him with strikes, Poirier relied on his favorite technique and grabbed a hold of his neck and arm to jump for a guillotine. It was a high risk attack that didn’t bring him any reward, but he was very clear when asked if he regretted it in the post-fight interview:
“When I had him hurt? Nah, never. Had to do one last one. One last one. And damn, I really thought that was gonna be the one, man. I had him hurt. But he rolled to his back, and I just couldn’t control it.”
There is something that Poirier thinks he could have done differently though, and it came much later in the fight:
“Going into the fifth, I thought it was close. I thought it might have been two and two. So in the fifth, I could have put myself in harm’s way a little bit more. Maybe I would have got finished. Maybe I would have finished him. I could have took more chances in the fifth.”
Obviously Poirier’s assessment in the moment was wrong and Holloway was actually winning on the judge’s scorecards, but he couldn’t have known that at the time. He then added to why he didn’t throw a little more caution to the wind:
“I was trying to fight like a professional, be smart. It seemed like he was waiting to counter me with his right hand every time I would come in. The crazy thing is he never threw it, but his footwork and his movement was ready to throw that right hand. So I didn’t wanna take too many risks, getting countered. I didn’t wanna miss and get countered. And he had already hurt me in the second round.”
The full post-fight interview with Dustin Poirier where he talks about the jumping guillotine against Max Holloway at UFC 318 was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of MMAMania:
