That Hooker fight wasn't low key at all. Dustin got busted the fuck up the first half of that fight. He showed great heart and cardio and won because of it which I think has people maybe forgetting just how much he was getting wrecked.
When a guy flat admits that if his opponent had another 20 or 30 seconds he likely would have gotten finished, you know he was badly hurt. And Dustin straight said that. I love Dustin for his honesty, heart, toughness, and for just being seemingly a good human being. But...the guy has been in some wars and he's slowing down a bit.
That's an incredible leap of logic based on precious little, and while I'm not surprised to see it from other posters, I'm surprised you're buying into this narrative.
What evidence is there that Dustin is "slowing down" in any manner? He's 31 years old and I haven't seen any drop in performance recently. In fact, 3 fights and 1.5 years ago, his win over Holloway was the finest of his entire career.
Now, after a loss to Khabib where he took very little damage and that amazing fight against Hooker, who looked INSANELY good for the first 2 rounds, he's past his prime? So from the absolute pinnacle of his career to noticeably past his prime in 1.5 years, all at the ripe old age of 31? Yeah, I'm not buying it.
I don't even think Poirier has taken as much damage as people think.
In the past 3 years, he has only fought 5 times. 3 of those featured little to moderate damage (Alvarez, Holloway, Khabib) and 2 were brutal wars that he nevertheless won (Gaethje, Hooker). That's simply not the degree of damage where we start talking about a guy being badly affected by them.
Recall the same narrative about Gaethje after he lost to Poirier and was about to face Vick and was even money, who had sustained more cumulative damage.