Dustin Poirier Admits He Helped a Teammate Cheat the Scale
Dustin Poirier revealed he once lifted a teammate during weigh-ins to help him make weight.
Dustin Poirier has a confession. The former UFC interim lightweight champion revealed on the Deep Waters podcast that he once helped an overweight teammate make weight by physically lifting him during a weigh-in in Mississippi.
The method was about as low-tech as it gets. Poirier stood behind a towel with his naked teammate while others provided a visual shield from the front. Then he simply lifted the fighter enough to shave off the extra weight on the scale.
"I grabbed a handful of hairy man ass cheeks and I lifted him up a little bit, got him on weight," Poirier said with a laugh.
Poirier did not name the teammate or specify which event in Mississippi the incident took place at. He told the story as a moment of teammate loyalty rather than a serious confession, and the podcast treated it the same way.
The retired fighter (30-10) stepped away from competition after losing to Max Holloway but has not completely shut the door on a return. He has said publicly that he misses competing.
The towel trick is one of MMA's worst-kept secrets. Fighters have been using towels to obscure weigh-in shenanigans for years, and commissions have cracked down with mixed results. Poirier just happens to be the biggest name to openly admit doing it.
I respect the honesty. Poirier is retired, he has nothing to lose, and he told this story like it was a Tuesday. Because in MMA, it kind of is. The towel trick has been around forever and everyone in the sport knows it happens.
The real issue is not Poirier grabbing his buddy behind a towel. It is a sport that forces athletes to drain themselves to dangerous levels just to step on a scale for 10 seconds. Commissions have tried to fix it and mostly failed. Digital scales, witnessed weigh-ins, same-day hydration testing. None of it has solved the core problem.
But as a story? This is peak Poirier. The man would literally do anything for his teammates, and apparently that includes getting a handful of sweaty glutes at seven in the morning. Cannot hate on that kind of loyalty.
