Prime poirier couldve beat islam

[idontchecklowkicks]

By the time he was fighting islam, dustin had already had 39 professional fights, having absorbed more damage than almost anybody else in the ufc and it was clear that he had slowed down significantly. He was much slower, weaker and less explosive than before and even then he did a ton of damage to islam. Islam has a bad habit of getting way too comfortable on the feet (hes not as good as people think, he has good striking defence but its not world class) and a prime version of poirier couldve very well exploited that and got a finish. Islam doesn’t really have a great chin and dustin (in his prime) had more than enough power in his cross and lead hook to drop him or even knock him out. The one big question mark in this matchup is whether or not a prime version of poirier would remain as defensively responsible regarding the takedown threat as the dustin who actually fought islam. In that fight he fought very differently and its hard to say to what extent this was an intentional decision in order to minimise the takedown threat or simply because his body could no longer comfortably allow him to be as aggressive. In any case, if a prime dustin poirier came in with the right gameplan i give him a very high chance of beating islam (40-45%). Islam doesn’t have the same level of durability and physical strength which caused poirier so much trouble during his fight with khabib. Islam is a much more technical grappler which i do think hurts his chances in this fight, especially given that poirier is very big and strong for 155. Islam had serious difficulty taking and holding down this old withered version of dustin and although this is to a great extent due to dustins incredible preparation for this fight, its still clear that islam had a much smaller advantage in terms of strength than usual. Obviously its still very difficult to pick against islam and if i had to put my life on the line I would probably pick him over poirier, however islam has a tendency to underperform in certain matchups (partially because he doesn’t stick to his gameplan at times) and while his opponents then didnt have the power to punish him, poirier, especially in his prime, could absolutely put him out