“In Eighth Grade I Was Getting in a Lot of Trouble”- Dustin Poirier Details His Start of MMA Career

Published 10/01/2021, 8:03 AM EDT

Dustin Poirier is one of the best MMA fighters in the world. He is the former interim UFC lightweight champion and is currently #1 in the UFC lightweight rankings.

Having found all the success that he has, Poirier didn’t particularly have a stable childhood. From getting into fights to running with the wrong crowd, Dustin ‘The Diamond’ Poirier let everyone in on the stories of his childhood in a recent interview.

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Dustin, in the interview, said, “In eighth grade, I was getting in a lot of trouble, running with the wrong crowd of people. I ended up going to juvenile detention for a while. When I got out, I started ninth grade and stopped, so I never graduated ninth grade. I was just running around aimlessly, without a goal, without something to work towards.”

According to Poirier, the first day he wore the boxing gloves and experienced the camaraderie of the other guys at the gym was when he knew that this was where he wanted to be because it felt like home.

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Dustin Poirier – The Journey

Dustin Poirier has always maintained that he was a combat sports fan growing up. He was a huge boxing fan and what he wanted to do just that.

He said, “Growing up, I always loved combat sports. I remember getting excited, going to friends for Mike Tyson fights when he was fighting Holyfield. I just always loved boxing; boxing was what I wanted to do. Eventually, I met some guys at a boxing gym who were doing mixed martial arts. They were working on their striking, and I went to their gym and the story is history.”

Ever since then, Poirier has come a long way and hasn’t looked back. Having beaten the likes of Conor McGregor (twice), Justin Gaethje, Dan Hooker, and many more, Poirier is now one of the most recognizable stars in the world of MMA.

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He even beat Max Holloway and became the interim UFC lightweight champion. Poirier then went up against the champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and lost via submission in the third round.

In 2021, his trilogy with ‘The Notorious‘ Conor McGregor turned him into a superstar. The two events, UFC 257 and UFC 264, were among the highest-selling pay-per-views in UFC history.

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What do you think about Dustin’s journey? What is next for Dustin Poirier? Let us know in the comments!

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Written by:

Arunaditya is a UFC writer at EssentiallySports. Having completed his Post Graduate Diploma in Multimedia Journalism from IIJNM, Arunaditya aspires to be an important voice in the world of MMA and interview the likes of Jon Jones, Conor McGregor, Amanda Nunes, and other such superstars of the sport. He has followed the sport for over a decade and is an ardent fan of Georges St-Pierre, who he believes is the greatest of all time.

“In Eighth Grade I Was Getting in a Lot of Trouble”- Dustin Poirier Details His Start of MMA Career

Dustin Poirier – The Journey

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