Even for a man who has been in countless in-cage classics, Dustin Poirier sounded as if he was in awe of his latest five-round war.
How else to react to one of the most action-packed lightweight bouts in recent memory? In a rematch of a 2012 featherweight encounter that ended in Poirier winning by first-round submission, Poirier and Max Holloway fought tooth-and-nail for 25 minutes on Saturday at UFC 236 in Atlanta to determine who would become the new interim lightweight champion. What looked to be a blowout early on for Poirier instead turned into a back-and-forth clash that saw both men eating shots and asking for more.