Finish #1: Poirier vs Gaethje 1
Two of the best action fighters of all time clashed in the center of the cage and did not stop clashing until the referee pulled one of the other. This was the scenario when Dustin Poirier beat Justin Gaethje in 2018. An unpolished Gaethje certainly did not possess all the qualities of the Justin who became interim champ, but he did possess crippling leg kicks, dangerous hands, unmatched aggression, and the heart of a berserker.
This knockout is one more of Poirier’s famous examples of what I sometimes call “rolling downhill,” the onslaught which Dustin, or any fighter, unleashes when he senses his prey is hurt. When a skilled fighter enters a flow state during a finishing barrage, their offense picks up more moss like a stone rolling downhill until the attrition inevitably breaks the already bent reed across from them. The quicker a weakened fighter can land a clean counter that backs the opponent off, circle out to create space, and recover from their dazed state, the better it is, because when a fighter like Dustin gets rolling they will crush you. Yet it is not so easy to put him off, to land even one good shot that stops him in his tracks for a moment; many an elite fighter has been faced with that circumstance and known exactly what was coming and been unable to stop it.
The stone needs that first push though, the catalyst to fuel the fire, and against Gaethje, Poirier landed one of the best single punches of his career. When Justin threw just one too many naked leg kicks — leg kicks had been beating Dustin up all night, he later needed surgery as a result — Dustin used the data gathered and timed his counter to perfection, landing a long left straight across the open-stance matchup that caught Gaethje on one leg, not yet reset from his kick. ‘The Highlight’s legs went rubber immediately and he barely stayed upright while falling backwards across the entire octagon. Poirier ran into the pocket and began his barrage, doubling up on the right hook early to mess with what little defensive coherence remained in Justin’s spinning brain. All Dustin really had to do was keep punching while not letting Gaethje clinch up, and Justin was so far gone that it was not the hardest hill he had to roll down for a knockout.
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What makes this finish special is the fight, an absolute war for three rounds before a spectacular finish to close it out. It would undoubtedly go on any top hundred, even top fifty, beat MMA fights list. Dustin had the lead 29-28 when he found the finish, but the attritive weapons of Gaethje seemed to be weakening Poirier more, as the Diamond was getting consistently shakier on his lead leg from eating calf kicks. If he did not find the finish, who knows what Justin could have done? (that question also bears asking for Alvarez vs Gaethje)
In this fight, Dustin showed how to both let the finish come to you, and how to make it happen proactively. He did not get wilder or crazier or even load up more on every shot. He exploited an observed pattern/weakness in his opponent, set a trap, and put his best mechanically sound punch into closing the trap. It worked. Punching harder does not guarantee results, punching cleaner gets knockouts, punching in a way the opponent is less able to see coming gets knockouts. And Dustin Poirier can be quite sneaky with his MMA boxing when he leaves that shell of his.
