UFC's Dustin Poirier Says He'd Move Up to 170 Pounds to Fight Nate Diaz

Coming off his spectacular win over Conor McGregor, Dustin Poirier has his sights set on another fighter with a win over McGregor on his resume.

During an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience (h/t Alexander K. Lee of MMAFighting), Poirier mentioned his desire to move up in weight to fight Nate Diaz: "Before I'm done fighting, I'll go up to 170. Yeah, I'll go up to 170 to fight Nate."

Poirier's last 14 fights have been in the 155-pound lightweight division, and he is coming off arguably the biggest win of his career, beating McGregor by second-round technical knockout at UFC 257 in January.

The 32-year-old is also a former interim UFC lightweight champion by virtue of a win over Max Holloway at UFC 236, although he lost his next fight to Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 242.

Overall, Poirier is 27-6 with one no-contest in his career, and he essentially has his pick of the litter with regard to his upcoming fights.

For now, it seems likely that Poirier will be in the UFC lightweight title mix, whether that means Nurmagomedov coming out of retirement or vacating the belt.

After that, Diaz would undoubtedly be an intriguing opponent, especially since the fight was supposed to happen in the past.

Per Lee, Poirier vs. Diaz was scheduled for UFC 230 in 2018 at lightweight, but Poirier had to pull out of the fight with an injury, and it was never rescheduled.

Poirier mentioned the fact that their fight got called off, saying:

"Me and him were supposed to fight at Madison Square Garden. I kind of was the fall guy—He gets to point and say I pulled out of the fight and I did. I went to get stem cells done on my hip.

"But I was going to fight, I was going to go through a camp and fight him if they wouldn't have started offering me other replacement opponents, Nate was playing games with the UFC, UFC started offering me opponents and I said, 'Look guys, if this is happening, I'm just going to have my hip taken care of.' He's a guy I've always wanted to fight."

The 35-year-old Diaz hasn't fought since a TKO loss to Jorge Masvidal at UFC 244 in 2019 at welterweight, but he has an impressive resume to his credit and remains a popular figure among fans.

Diaz is 20-12 in his career and owns victories over big names such as McGregor, Anthony Pettis and Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone.

Poirier vs. Diaz at welterweight would be a fight worthy of headlining a pay-per-view even if there is no title involved, but it is difficult to envision it happening any time soon based on Poirier's positioning in the lightweight division.