I feel like everybody's who fighting, young fighters and still

In the clangor of the gym and the hush before the walk, Dustin Poirier lays down a creed: “I feel like everybody who’s fighting, young fighters and still learning and growing, that should be their goal—to be the UFC world champion.” Hear the iron under the words. He is not merely naming a belt; he is naming a horizon. For the novice who tapes his hands with trembling focus, for the apprentice who counts rounds like rosary beads, a single North Star steadies the mind: climb until you touch gold—or die as the kind of worker who could have.

To set the goal so high is not arrogance; it is alignment. The ancients taught that a small aim shrinks the soul, and a great aim arranges chaos into order. When the target is the UFC summit, sleep finds its proper hour, food becomes fuel, friends become a chosen few, and every drill declares its purpose. You no longer ask, “Do I feel like it?” You ask, “Does this serve the summit?” Thus does a belt become a metronome for a life.

But Poirier’s oracle is double: young fighters must be both learning and growing. Learning is the humility to be wrong in public; growing is the courage to try again in the same place that broke you. The mat remembers who you are; it also forgives if you bring better footwork and a quieter ego. In this school, correction is holy and film study is prayer. One round teaches range, another teaches composure; the heavy bag preaches about hips; the jump rope writes timing into your blood.

Consider a lamp from the road itself. There was a Louisiana kid who bled in regional shows, took short-notice calls, and learned the hard arithmetic of weight cuts and travel-worn legs. He met wizards and wrestlers, lost, adapted, came back with neater combinations and less pride in wild exchanges. One year brought an interim crown; another brought a champion who suffocated space; another, a new strike sharpened in the dark. Whether you call him Poirier or see him as every journeyman’s reflection, the sermon is the same: the belt is the banner, but the craft is the pilgrimage.

Or set another lamp high: an older warrior who tore a knee, was counted out, and returned with a jab made of patience and a sprawl built like a gate. He wore the strap at last not because a miracle found him, but because routine became destiny—ice baths, tape study, sparring with purpose, the gratitude-sized chip on his shoulder that said, “Again.” The cage respects such religion. It pays in sudden cheques and slow respect.

The origin of the saying is the culture of the cage, where reward obeys preparation and luck is the residue of relentless days. In that world, to aim for anything less than world champion is to bargain with gravity. The mountain is steep; many will fall; but the climb teaches a language you cannot learn in safer valleys—of breathing under storm, of choosing clean technique when panic howls, of holding your center while the crowd tries to steal it. Even those who never touch the crown come down changed: calmer in crisis, honest with mirrors, dangerous to despair.

What, then, is the teaching for the one lacing gloves tonight? Name the goal without apology. Write it where you dress. Then serve it with specifics: one skill cycle per camp (a new exit angle, a takedown chain), one weakness owned in daylight, one recovery habit guarded like treasure. Find coaches who correct, teammates who contradict, elders who remind you the belt is heavy and the heart must be heavier. Study champions not only for highlights but for habits—sleep, pace, humility after victory, composure after loss.

Carry this as a vow: be a young fighter forever—always learning, always growing—and let the title be your compass, not your cage. If it comes, wear it like borrowed fire and use it to warm others. If it does not, let your workmanship be so exact that even defeat salutes. For in the end, the path to UFC world champion is the same path to becoming unbreakable: show up, shut up, level up—again—and let your days announce what your lips need not boast.