Eddie Alvarez’s coach explains heated confrontation with Dustin Poirier at UFC Calgary

Dustin Poirier was certainly amped up after his big knockout win over Eddie Alvarez at UFC on FOX 30, and ‘The Diamond’ got into a little bit of a spat with Alvarez’ longtime coach, Mark Henry.

Poirier was seen exchanging harsh words with Henry after the fight, and Henry says the American Top Team product bluntly told him to back off.

“I walked up to Dustin to congratulate him,” Henry told Marc Raimondi of MMA Fighting in a recent interview. “He says, Get the blank away from me. Which I did. I’m like, you know what? It’s his moment. I want him to have his moment. He deserves it.”

There was some animosity between Poirier and Alvarez in the lead-up to their rematch at UFC Calagry, as Poirier felt ‘The Underground King’ was disrespectful towards him in the aftermath of their controversial bout at UFC 211.

Alvarez, the former UFC and Bellator lightweight champion, unintentionally landed a series of illegal knees to Poirier’s head in the second round and the bout was ruled a No Contest (NC). Alvarez teased Poirier in the aftermath by claiming that he was milking it to the referee and was looking for an easy way out of the fight.

Poirier, 29, didn’t take kindly to this and took issue with not just Alvarez but his entire team.

Henry, however, states that he had nothing to do with his student’s derogatory comments and has always had the utmost respect for Poirier.

“The few [interviews] that I did, I talked very, very highly about Dustin,” Henry said. “I said how he loved he was. We’ve had hundreds of guys come to our place to help with sparring and Dustin was the most loved.”

The good news is that whatever beef Poirier had with Alvarez and his team was settled backstage at the Scoitabank Saddledome in Calgary, Canada.

According to Henry, Poirier immediately sought out Henry and his team and apologized for his post-fight antics.

“He was great, man,” Henry said. “I don’t even know if he went to the doctor first. He ran to find us first. Before he even went to the doctor, he found us, he apologized to our whole team. That’s just a good dude. It was the heat of the moment. I just wish he would have known the things I was saying about him beforehand.

“He’s such an honorable dude, man,” Henry added. “It was at the moment, he’s all jacked up.”

With the win, Poirier surged into the UFC’s top-three lightweight rankings and is expected to face the winner of the highly anticipated title bout between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor, set to take place at UFC 229 on Oct. 6.