UFC 281: 'Respectful tension' as Dustin Poirier, Michael Chandler prepare to fight at Madison Square Garden

Any listing or ranking of heated and mean-spirited rivalries in UFC history, be it just recently or all-time, almost certainly would not include Dustin Poirier vs. Michael Chandler, unless maybe that list reached triple digits.

So, as their paths converge at UFC 281 at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, how best to characterize their comments about and directly toward each other since Chandler debuted in the UFC in January 2021?

“Respectful tension,” Chandler told Newsday in a telephone interview last week. “You look at Poirier, who he is, what he's trying to accomplish. You look at me, who I am, what I'm trying to accomplish. We're trying to accomplish the exact same thing. So no matter what, there's going to be tension.”

That may not be as retweet-friendly as when the two fighters jawed at each other in the crowd at UFC 276 last July in Las Vegas. Or as headline-inducing as when Poirier said he’d rather be selling his hot sauce than fighting Chandler after Chandler made his promotional debut at UFC 257.

“I think that’s where it kind of started on his part,” Poirier told Newsday. “He thought that I was pushing him to the side when I said that. Personally, I just wanted to see him cut his teeth in the company that I've been fighting for 10 years. I respect everything he’s done outside the organization. He's a former [Bellator] world champion, beat some huge names. And he came over and that was his first fight in the UFC. When they started asking me about fighting him, I just wanted to see him earn his stripes a little bit, go out there and play some tough guys. And you know, he’s done that since then.”

They both have. Chandler (33-9, 1 no contest) is 2-2 in the UFC, with three of those fights against former or future champions. His resume includes highlight-reel knockouts of Dan Hooker and Tony Ferguson and the 2021 Fight of the Year against Justin Gaethje. Three of Chandler’s four UFC fights have earned him a post-fight bonus.

Since UFC 257, where Poirier stopped Conor McGregor by TKO in the second round, Poirier beat McGregor again by TKO six months later, then lost a lightweight title shot against champion Charles Oliveira by submission. (Oliveira knocked out Chandler to win the lightweight title seven months earlier.) Eight of Poirier's last nine fights were either for a title or against a former champion. Six of those fights earned Poirier (28-7, 1 no contest) a post-fight bonus.

The Poirier-Chandler pairing for UFC 281 at MSG figures to have significant title implications for the lightweight division, now presided over by new champion Islam Makhachev. It also is a matchup that has had fans and fight folks amped since it was first reported. The fighters understand that.

“Those are the kinds of fights I try to align myself with,” said Poirier, a 33-year-old Louisiana native. “The dangerous ones. The ones that are exciting. So if I’m excited for it, the fans should be excited for it.”

Chandler agreed, as he embarks on the first fight of his new UFC contract at the arena where he and Gaethje kept up an exciting, frenetic and brutal pace for 15 minutes to the New York crowd’s raucous delight.

“Madison Square Garden brings something special out of me, so let's do it again,” the 36-year-old Chandler said.

But Chandler cautioned against letting the bright lights on the big stage in the biggest media market in the world take hold of him during the fight.

“Being a high-level professional athlete, you get really good at blocking things out,” said Chandler, who lives in Nashville and trains at Sanford MMA in south Florida. “You can let that Madison Square Garden get in your head, you can let fighting Dustin Poirier, a perennial top-one, top-two, top-three guys in the entire world really get in your head. But for me, and it's never a disrespect to my opponent, but I'm not fighting an opponent. I'm fighting two arms and two legs under a certain ruleset inside of an octagon. I try to just keep the main thing, the main thing and focus on my game plan where I know I can exploit his weaknesses where I know I'm very good.”

By Mark La Monica

mark.lamonica@newsday.comLaMonicaMark

Mark La Monica is a deputy sports editor at Newsday. He also covers mixed martial arts.