Michael Bisping broke down the BMF title fight at UFC 318.
Max Holloway (26-8 MMA, 22-8 UFC) defends his BMF title in a trilogy bout against Dustin Poirier (30-9 MMA, 22-8 UFC) in Saturday’s headliner (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) from Smoothie King Center in New Orleans.
Poirier will make the walk for the final time in his career, but Bisping wonders if the pressure will get to him when competing in front of his home state.
“Is the motivation still there? Of course it’s in New Orleans, his home town, and the UFC are going there specifically for Dustin Poirier, and that’s incredible,” Bisping said on his YouTube channel. “That could be the fairy tale farewell to an unbelievable career for one of everyone’s favorite fighters, but it brings a lot of pressure, it brings a lot of anxiety.
“You’ve got friends and family – they’re all in town. They all want to see you perform. You’re like the local hero. It brings a lot of pressure, I’m telling you right now. I have been there many times. Every time I fought in England, it was a little bit more stressful. But I was also undefeated in England because you want to do the people justice, you want to make them proud, and it pushes you in the training camp.”
Holloway will look to avoid losing his second trilogy after going 0-3 against UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski.
“Max Holloway is coming into this one very motivated, as well, because Max Holloway doesn’t want to lose two trilogies. Of course, he lost three in a row to Alexander Volkanovski. He doesn’t want to lose three in a row to Dustin Poirier. You’ve got to think here for Max Holloway, if he can beat Dustin Poirier, he inserts himself into the conversation.
“Ilia Topuria is the champ, he’s probably going to fight Justin Gaethje, Paddy Pimblett, Arman Tsarukyan, one of those. If Max Holloway gets a big win here, and then gets another one in the meantime, he is putting himself into that conversation. When you look at them both, they’re both great strikers. I don’t think we’re going to see any wrestling out of this. They’re both going to go toe-to-toe. They’re going to throw down. It’s going to be absolutely sensational.”
Although Holloway is coming off the first knockout loss of his career to Ilia Topuria at UFC 308 and has already lost twice to Poirier, Bisping isn’t ready to count him out.
“It’s going to be tremendous, and it will be the final time we get to see Dustin Poirier compete inside the octagon,. But I don’t know if he’s going to be the winner,” Bisping said. “Never doubt Dustin Poirier, but never doubt Max Holloway. Yes, Max Holloway was just knocked out against Ilia Topuria, so that could present some problems for him.
“That could have weakened the chin. Sometimes people get cracked, they get knocked out, and they’re never the same again. Or it could have lit a fire under his ass and he’s like, ‘You know what? I’m going to show the people, I’m coming to Louisiana to whoop some ass,’ and honestly, at this point, I don’t know which way it’s going to go down.”
