“ He struck me so hard ”: Brendan Allen tells training with Dustin Poirier when he was still a teenager

Brendan Allen has the chance to fight near his home at the UFC 318 in New Orleans, and he probably owes it to Dustin Poirier.

The coming card on Saturday is built around Poirier’s retirement fight in New Orleans while he faces Max Holloway in the main event. As a compatriot from Louisiana, Allen certainly hoped that he would have the opportunity to compete there as well. He obtained his wish with a resentment match reserved against Marvin Vettori, and he is grateful for the occasion.

This is why Allen has no problem giving pear her flowers even if it hurts him if the former actual champion in light weights is his teammates with his next opponent.

“He did a lot for sport,” said Allen about Poirier speaking to MMA fights. “He has done a lot for his community. He did a lot for fighting and many people. I think he finished.

“I am really happy for him and his family. I think everyone in Louisiana and all those who love MMA from where we are to thank him at the moment. Because without him, we probably did not come to Louisiana. I would say and I said thank you for that. He is with the [opposing] Team so I can’t say too much.

Although they no longer train together, Allen definitely remembers days when he simply learned the MMA and Poirier was one of the best hopes that came out of Louisiana.

In fact, the veteran average weight remembers a particular training session where it was thrown directly into the fire with Poirier as a partner. Although he was still a teenager at the time, Allen says that Poirrier treated him like a professional.

“I already trained in another gymnasium, and he trained in another gymnasium,” said Allen. “Dustin and my friend Kurt were the two biggest guys from all southern at the time. So they wanted them to train together. I think Dustin was just to the point where he had a WEC fight or was about to be signed for WEC. It was somewhere at that time. Kurt just asked me to go with him and I went.

“I was fighting, trying to watch them Spar because they had a hell of a fighting session. Then they were live gos from the guard against the wall and the man they said and he struck me so hard. It was like a live exercise but you start in the guard and he hit me so hard. I am again like a man.

Allen says that this kind of training sessions were normal for the fighters to come at the time when the fighting essentially meant fights.

The athletes have become smarter in long-term health training these days, but Allen admits that he learned a lot of pear trees and other fighters at that time because he had no passage simply because he was a teenager.

“You learn very quickly,” said Allen. “It was all my education at first, trying just with guys who have 25, 26, 27 [years old] And I am 14 years old, 15, 16 years old. It’s very different from this one, I can tell you. It’s very different.

Of these first combat sessions to share now a place with him in the UFC, Allen appreciates everything that Poirier has done for sport and he wishes him only the best of retirement.

“In the end, everything apart, I am super happy for him and his family,” said Allen. “He has won everything he has right now. So many fighters would kill him and he did it. No matter what’s going on, the man made a big life by hitting people in the face. You can ask nothing more than that.”