Dustin Poirier receives new opponent at UFC 131

One of the UFC’s brightest prospects, Dustin Poirier, was temporarily left without an opponent for the promotion’s June 11 trip to Vancouver for UFC 131 after originally scheduled adversary Rani Yahya suffered an undisclosed injury during training. However, the vacancy was fortunately of the short-lived variety, and as a result the 22-year old will still see the ring at the event.

According to a post on the UFC’s Twitter account, Poirier will now face 8-3 Brit Jason Young on the preliminary portion of a card currently headlined by Brock Lesnar’s bid to earn a rematch with heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez in the form of a contendership clash against powerful striker Junior dos Santos.

Young, a former Cage Rage champion, is coming off back-to-back wins and appears to have a decent balance of stand-up and grappling based on his ability to find success on his feet or through the judges’ scorecards.

In Poirier he will face a 9-1 competitor with eight finishing performances and a lopsided beatdown of top featherweight challenger Josh Grispi at UFC 125. Six of the soft-spoken Louisianan’s victories have come in the opening round of action including a fifty-three second knockout of Zack Micklewright at WEC 52 this past November.

PHOTO CREDIT – UFC/TWITTER