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Not long after Dustin Poirier lost his fight for the UFC lightweight belt at UFC 269, he made a deal with the reigning champion, Charles Oliveira.
“I would like to donate $20,000 to the hometown where he’s from,” Poirier told Oliveira and his translator. “You [Oliveira] pick where the money goes.”
The two embraced and Poirier congratulated him again on the win via submission. Oliveira was an underdog to keep his title heading into Saturday night.
Poirier was asked about the donation by a reporter after the fight and said he had planned on doing it “win, lose or draw.”
“I saw a video this week of him showing where he grew up and where his mom cooked dinner for him. I think it was an old video. And [I] saw some of the sights of where he grew up and just how little they had. It came to me this week. I thought I was going to let him know win, lose or draw, [and] talk to him after and let him know me and the Good Fight Foundation would donate $20,000 to his city in Brazil and put the money to wherever he thinks it needs to be. He’s a good guy and he knows where the money will go the furthest. That’s what we’re going to do. And like I said, man, [I’m going to] continue to try to do good and that’s it. Be a better person every day.”
The Good Fight Foundation was founded by Poirier in 2018 in Lafayette, Louisiana, and has helped St. Jude’s Research Hospital, a local middle school and a women’s and children’s hospital, among other places. The nonprofit runs on donations, fundraisers, auctions and volunteer labor.
Oliveira grew up in a favela — a lower-income neighborhood — in Guarujá, São Paulo. His mother was illiterate and held two jobs, just as his father also held two jobs to support the family. Oliveira always had food, but wore hand-me-down clothes and had to fight for everything.
“The one thing I know at this point,” he said, via Yahoo Sports’ Kevin Iole, “is that nobody will hit me harder in the Octagon than life has hit me.”
Oliveira spent much of last December making donations of food and amenities around his hometown. He showed piles of food he was giving away in a tweet and has helped people whom the COVID-19 pandemic has left vulnerable.