“Underperforming hurts worse”- Dustin Poirier why losing to Charles Oliveira was disappointing

Dustin Poirier reflects on UFC 269 defeat
Dustin Poirier was hurt after his loss to Charles Oliveira at the UFC 269 main event title fight.
UFC #1 lightweight contender Dustin Poirier was up against the recently crowned champion Charles Oliveira at UFC 269. Poirier was really excited to fight in front of the packed T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, and be crowned the new lightweight champion but things didn’t go well for the fighter from Louisiana.
Poirier lost via a devastating choke in the third round which made it the second title fight loss for him. The previous time Dustin fought for the title was against Khabib Nurmagomedov where he got choked out too. In the recent episode of MMA Hour, Dustin reflected on his loss and spoke to MMA Fighting reporter Ariel Helwani.
Dustin has been in the game for a long time so losses are just a stepping stone for the “Diamond” but what hurts the most for Poirier is not giving his best in his fights. “All of them hurt man. Losing always sucks but underperforming hurts worse than a loss,” said Poirier talking to Helwani.
Dustin Poirier explains what went wrong at UFC 269

“The second round, where I was trying to get a standup instead of using my jiu-jitsu. Going into this fight I thought, if I was in a bad position, I was going to hold it out,” said Dustin talking about his gameplan heading into this fight. Charles Oliveira managed to hold down “The Diamond” for almost 4 minutes in the second round making the judges favor him massively.
Dustin believes that was not the best version of himself. Poirier also realizes that was his last chance fighting for the title. “Hindsight is always 20/20 man. There’s a lot of stuff I can look back on. I’m just so much better than that. Everybody says that when they lose but I know I am. It sucks man, I may never get another opportunity to call myself a world champion,” said Poirier ended sadly.