Dustin Poirier, after an illustrious career, revealed that he has one or two more fights in mind following his unsuccessful UFC 302 outing. However, Dana White didn’t seem satisfied with those plans, but he did mention that it ultimately depends on ‘The Diamond’. When UFC legend Chael Sonnen gave a listen to the CEO’s statements, he claimed there was another meaning to what White meant.

Despite failing to win the title, Dustin Poirier has been successful in impressing Dana White with his winning performance against Benoit Saint-Denis, an up-and-comer. Hence, he thinks that there is a lot more for the Lafayette native to offer, just like Daniel Cormier, who also retired earlier than Dana White would have liked. However, White did mention that he was happy to see him in the position he is now, being a key figure of the broadcasting team. Maybe Poirier should think about that, but is that all that the 55-year-old meant? Well, Chael Sonnen has insinuated another message behind it.

What did Chael Sonnen learn from Dana White’s comments regarding Dustin Poirier?

We’ve seen many fighters in combat sports continuing to compete way past their prime, and then getting overwhelmed by their opponents. Sometimes it’s brutal and other times, not so much. As such, Chael Sonnen claims that Dana White is being careful about avoiding these kinds of situations because he’s seen these things happening in boxing and he doesn’t want fans to see that happening inside the Octagon.

“I feel there’s a little bit of a larger message when Dana White starts talking about retirement. One thing that he’s been very careful of is to look at the things that have happened in boxing, the things he did not like in boxing, which included sending somebody out there that wasn’t fit to follow the most basic rule which is to protect themselves at all times and he does not do that in our sport,” Chael Sonnen stated on the ‘Good Guy/Bad Guy’ show.

If the ‘basic rule’ suggested by Chael Sonnen is something that fighters appear to forget during their fights or show an inability to follow, ‘The American Gangster’ claims Dana White will be the first one to make people know about it irrespective of his standing in the promotion.

“He will make sure that the public understands. No matter what revenue the guy can bring in or what kind of ROI and a guy’s good for business, as soon as he is not going to follow the golden rule of protect himself at all times… When Dana senses that, he will publicly give a blessing that that person could remove themselves from the sport,” Sonnen further stated.

There have been certain gestures made by the UFC CEO that have earned him praise from Chael Sonnen, who earlier had various disagreements with Dana White. As such, when it comes to the topic of retirement, ‘The American Gangster’ praised the 55-year-old for not forcing his fighters to do what he would want them to do.

No pressure from the UFC CEO

If we take a look at Tony Ferguson and how his career has spiraled down since the turn of this decade. He’s on an 8-fight losing streak, and Dana White had mentioned in the recent past that maybe ‘El Cucuy’ should call it a career. He echoed the same sentiment when Chris Weidman returned after a two-year injury haul only to get injured again. However, the head honcho never forced them to retire or do something that the fighters may not want to do, and that’s exactly what Chael Sonnen respects about the 55-year-old promoter.

“The major thing that Dana is doing [is that] he’s not pressuring anybody. This is a volunteer army. It has been a volunteer army from day one,” Chael Sonnen added. Meanwhile, Dustin Poirier’s claim that he has only a couple of fights left in him could see him compete in the 4-man tournament that he proposed for the BMF title, which is something Dana White has shown interest in as well. However, that remains to be seen.

With nothing except the undisputed title to win, Poirier does not see the point in losing more of his health to fighting. He would happily trade it in for a family life. At 35, he has much of life left to live and does not want fighting to take away from living it healthy and happy. If you’ve seen the gritty wars that ‘The Diamond’ has been in, you understand why he has opted for this.

Regardless, the latest updates state that he will fight at least two more times since he has quite a few fights left on his contract with the UFC. The only questions are ‘who’ and ‘when.’ As for the ‘where,’ well, at least one of them could be in Louisiana, where Poirier started fighting, and aspires to retire as a hometown hero.