LAS VEGAS — Whatever Dustin Poirier and Dan Hooker made for their lightweight bout Saturday at UFC Apex, it wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
The lightweight contenders put on a bout for the ages inside the small cage on the UFC campus, exceeding, is possible, the main event from a week earlier in the same cage between Josh Emmett and Shane Burgos.
Poirier, the former interim lightweight champion, pulled out a tense unanimous decision by scores of 48-47 twice and 48-46. It has to be a Fight of the Year candidate that keeps Poirier’s hopes for yet another title run alive.