Dustin Poirier and Michael Johnson entered UFC Fight Night 94 trending in opposite directions.
Exiting The Ultimate Fighter season 12, there were generally high hopes surrounding Johnson, and for good cause. The young product of the Blackzilians camp showed flashes of greatness and, in 2013, managed to put his entire game together, combining his long reach and southpaw stance with his strong wrestling base.
After posting three strong wins over high-level veterans, however, his rise to the top was derailed. Part of that was due to back-to-back losses to Beneil Dariush and Nate Diaz. It was also due to a domestic-violence arrest that was followed by a UFC suspension.
In 2016, he is in rebuilding mode, desperately seeking to return to top-10 relevance.
Once upon a time, Poirier was in the same spot. After quickly establishing himself as one of the best featherweights in the UFC's early featherweight division, he had tough losses to Chan Sung Jung and Cub Swanson. In less than a year, he went from heir apparent to the division to a gatekeeper, with his final job being to put over a hot upstart named Conor McGregor.
That stretch prompted him to return to the lightweight division, and the results have been beyond positive. Entering Fight Night 94 on a four-fight winning streak over consistently solid competition, he had the opportunity to cement himself as a top-10 name by beating Johnson and could even vault into the title picture with an impressive win.
The fight started slowly, with Poirier and Johnson pawing at one another. Neither man landed anything of note until, in the blink of an eye, Johnson clipped Poirier during an exchange with a clean right hand. He followed him to the ground and unleashed a hellish flurry of hammer fists that badly stiffened Poirier. The ref interjected as quickly as he could from there and officially waved the fight off at 1:35 of Round 1.
It's a sad turn for Poirier. The Diamond has undergone one of 2016's most impressive turnarounds and was starting to sniff at a UFC lightweight title shot. He left the featherweight division after being boxed out of the running due to losses to Swanson and McGregor and finds himself in a similar position after Fight Night 94.
Johnson, meanwhile, stops his career's proverbial bleeding with this win. While he doesn't necessarily move closer to a title shot in the crowded lightweight division, he does retain his fringe top-10 status and could be in line for bigger fights.
Of course, Johnson's career has shown time and again that any fighter is one win away from elite status and one loss away from being overrated. It will be worth watching whether it's this win, or his recent losses, that define him going forward.
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