Dustin Poirier and Michael Chandler Bout Added to UFC 281
Dustin Poirier will fight Michael Chandler at UFC 281, according to Brett Okamoto. UFC 281 will take place on Nov. 12 at Madison Square Garden Arena in New York, New York. Despite interest in the bout being a five-round non-title, it will be a three-round fight. In addition, Chandler received a new multi-fight deal from the UFC.
This bout will be Poirier’s return to the UFC octagon after losing to Charles Oliveira via rear-naked choke at UFC 269 in December 2021. Prior to that, he was on a three-fight win streak that included two wins over Conor McGregor and a win over Dan Hooker. Poirier is wildly regarded as one of the best active UFC fighters never to achieve undisputed champion status, however, he became the lightweight interim champion when he defeated Max Holloway at UFC 236 in 2019. Shortly after, he fell to the champion Khabib Nurmagomedov in an attempt to unify the belts. Poirier is currently ranked No. 2 at lightweight and No. 8 in the men’s pound-for-pound rankings.
His UFC 281 opponent, Chandler, has had one of the most entertaining UFC stretches in UFC history. Chandler is currently 2-2 in those bouts, but he has earned a performance bonus in each bout. Two came from his knockouts of Hooker and Tony Ferguson while the others came from Fight of the Night honors in his bouts with Oliviera and Justin Gaethje. These were ranked first and ten, respectively, for the best UFC fights of 2021. The bout with Oliviera was for the vacant UFC lightweight title. Chandler is currently ranked No. 4 at lightweight.
With both fighters excelling at providing fans with unfiltered violence, this bout is almost guaranteed to deliver an all-time great fight. Meanwhile, the winner will be one step closer to another crack at UFC gold.
The main event of UFC 281 will see Israel Adesanya look to defend his middleweight belt against Alex Pereira while Carla Esparza looks to defend her strawweight belt against Weili Zhang. Molly McCann will also fight Erin Blanchfield.
