HE MAY HAVE been arguably the main beneficiary from the cancellation of the fight, but Paddy Holohan is struggling to get his head around Dustin Poirier’s refusal to accept a new opponent following the withdrawal of Joe Duffy.
Duffy and Poirier were scheduled to headline UFC Fight Night 76 at Dublin’s 3Arena on Saturday night, until Duffy was pulled from the fight by UFC officials last night after it emerged that he suffered a concussion in training on Saturday.
The UFC did endeavour to keep Poirier on the card. He was offered the opportunity to face Antrim’s Norman Parke but turned it down, stating his preference to wait until the fight with Duffy is rescheduled.
Several other fighters also offered to step in and replace Duffy against Poirier, including two of Paddy Holohan’s Straight Blast Gym team-mates — UFC interim featherweight champion Conor McGregor and current TUF 22 contestant Artem Lobov.
Saturday’s main-event slot will subsequently be filled by Paddy Holohan’s flyweight bout against Louis Smolka instead, and while that’s good news for Holohan, he’s struggling to see the logic in Poirier’s thinking.
“Artem Lobov wanted to fight Dustin Poirier yesterday. Hundreds of people wanted to fight him and he’s like, oh no, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that. And people are like, well he’s thinking about his career,” said Holohan at today’s UFC Dublin media event at the 3Arena.
“But this is fighting. Let’s just go at it and stop worrying about losing and stop worrying about… people are so holding on to… ah, but if I lose I’ll get thrown out. So what, the world is bigger than worrying about things like that and being afraid for nothing. Take your finger out and go at it.”
