It’s safe to say that Dustin Poirier doesn’t rate Norman Parke at all.
After Joseph Duffy was pulled from the main event of UFC Dublin after suffering a concussion during training, the UFC tried their best to salvage the main event.
However, Poirier was understandably unwilling to fight a different opponent at just two days notice and instead fans were treated to a very entertaining flyweight bout between Paddy Holohan and Louis Smolka.
Poirier revealed after the event that the UFC had offered Norman Parke, who ended up beating Reza Madadi in the co-main event, as a replacement for Duffy.
The Diamond received some backlash from a group of “fans” for refusing to fight the Bushmills native, but he told MMA Junkie Radio that Parke should be thankful he opted not to fight him, because it saved his career.
“Ha, that’s a joke, man. Parke’s an easy fight. I said that from the jump. Hey, I saved Norman Parke’s career. He should be thankful this weekend I didn’t fight him. He would have been 0-3 in his last three fights, and he would be getting his walking papers. He’s lucky.”
Parke admitted in the post-fight press conference that after dropping successive losses to Gleison Tibau and Francisco Trinaldo, he was fighting for his career in the 3 Arena. Fighters who go 0-3 in the promotion, rarely live to tell the tale.
Although he feels he would have easily defeated Parke, Poirier revealed it was fear of injury that caused him to turn down the fight.
“All it would have been was a paycheck. What if I had I broken my hand? What if I had torn my ACL? It’s more than just, ‘Let me get this paycheck.’ Norman Parke, for sure, is an easy fight. He’s going to try to lean on you, and he’s slow. I could go on and on. This is the thing. I’m a prize fighter, and the prize wasn’t right. That’s why I didn’t fight.”
