Dana White Accuses Dustin Poirier of Negotiating Himself out of the Tony Ferguson Fight

The controversy between Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White and Dustin Poirier is still unfolding.

Much to the fans’ regret, it doesn't look like Dustin Poirier and Tony Ferguson will clash anytime soon. The fight never got the chance to be officially announced by the promotion, but hype was already skyrocketing for the intriguing clash. During the recent DWCS 2020 Week 7 post-fight news conference, the UFC president shared some details about the failure of the negotiations for the Poirier-Ferguson matchup.

“Listen, I like Dustin,” White said on Tuesday. “I'm not going to sit up here and say anything negative about Dustin, he's a great kid. I don't know if it was he didn't want to fight in Abu Dhabi or what his deal was – he didn't want to fight. Listen, there's a lot of different ways to turn down a fight. Negotiating yourself out of one is one of the ways you can do it. So for whatever reason, he didn't want to take this fight. Only he knows that.”

It didn't take too long for the former interim lightweight champion to answer to White's accusations. “The Diamond” took to Twitter to share a visual "I want the fight" reply, confirming that he is far from having negotiated himself out of the fight.

The last time he stepped into the cage, Poirier upended Dan Hooker in a thrilling clash that was rewarded with a "Fight of the Night" bonus. Prior, he squared off with Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 242, where "The Diamond" got submitted via rear-naked choke at the 2:06 mark of the third round. Now, it has yet to be seen when he will compete again.

In the meantime, the UFC is currently searching for another opponent for Tony Ferguson at UFC 254. According to some reports, former Bellator three-time lightweight champion Michael Chandler is being considered as a viable opponent for “El Cucuy.”