Benoit Saint-Denis’ opponent on the night of Saturday to Sunday has a link with France.
During the night from Saturday to Sunday, Frenchman Benoît Saint-Denis will face American Dustin Poirier in the co-main event of UFC 299 in Miami. The American fighter is quite simply one of the best in the UFC, the largest MMA organization in the world.
The 34-year-old American is more experienced than the Frenchman and has already made a name for himself in the world of MMA, twice defeating superstar Conor McGregor. During an interview in 2015, Dustin Poirier explained that since his childhood he loved this type of fight. “I did a lot of it growing up and then in high school. And I was always good at it. I always loved the purity of two men coming forward to confront each other. It’s weird to say but I have always found a notion of calm in chaos. That’s what I love about combat.”
Originally from Lafayette, Louisiana, Dustin Poirier is linked to France via his affiliation with the Acadians. To explain very quickly, the Acadians are the vast majority French-speaking and Catholic. They are descendants of the first French settlers established in Acadia during the era of New France. The ancestors of the Acadians mainly come from the west and southwest of France, Aquitaine and Saintonge, as well as Aunis, Poitou and Angoumois.