It’s been a while since Jon Anik jokingly suggested that he get a Nate Diaz tattoo if he upset Conor McGregor at UFC 196.
Now, about eight years after the semi-famous “209” ink on Anik’s arm, he’s teasing the potential for a second fighter-themed tattoo. If Dustin Poirier faced Diaz in the UFC and beat him, Anik said he would pay tribute to Poirier too, after Poirier’s suggestion.
He even said that before hosting the UFC Hall of Fame induction ceremony, he thought about getting a surprise tattoo to honor inductee Frankie Edgar, a former lightweight champion.
“Certainly, the 209 tattoo won’t be the last fighter tattoo or fighter tax tattoo I get,” Anik told MMA Junkie Radio. “If you really want to know, I was trying to find a really good fine line tattoo artist in Las Vegas for Hall of Fame (induction) week to get my Iron Fe element symbol honoring the great Frankie Edgar right here on the inside on my arm, which also wears 209, by the way.
“But for Dustin, I always wanted a neck tattoo. Part of me wants to imitate his King of Pentacles tattoo just behind his ear or just a diamond emoji. We could go to 337 – you know, I don’t mean to be ridiculous with different area codes with numbers all over me, necessarily. But yes, we would go to 337.”
Anik said he thinks the odds on that fight would probably favor Poirier, but the longtime fighter and former interim lightweight champion from Lafayette, Louisiana, would still be worthy of some ink — and would run the risk of angering his wife, even that only temporarily.
He said when he got his 209 tattoo in 2016, it took her a minute to accept it.
“Certainly Dustin Poirier is a fighter I would have no problem immortalizing on my skin forever, even if he is trying to convince me to do so in a fight where he could be a -400 favorite,” said Anik.
Poirier is coming off a fifth-round submission loss to lightweight champion Islam Makhachev at UFC 302 in June. Diaz beat Jorge Masvidal in a boxing match last Saturday in California. It’s been almost two years since his last UFC fight, a submission over Tony Ferguson in September 2022.
