u/Blehner1

Picked this up on eBay. Grabbed a strap from Milano. Listed as: SEIKO Men's Chronograph Watch Panda, White Dial Quartz [V657-7100]. My buddy told me it was the “poor man’s panda”. I think it’s pretty sweet.

Last Saturday, my wife and I met Dustin Poirier at the Get Me a Fighter meet and greet, and he signed one of the strangest but most meaningful pieces of UFC memorabilia I own: a souvenir cup from the Poirier vs. Islam fight.

A little backstory.

My wife and I met in recovery many years ago. We both have over 12 years clean now. Over time, life started getting better in ways I honestly never could have imagined. My career grew. She graduated college and found her calling in cancer research. We moved in together, got married, got a few dogs, and went on an amazing honeymoon.

Then we started trying to have a baby.

After more than a year with no luck, we found out she had one blocked fallopian tube, which reduced our chances. Eventually we had the hard conversation that maybe it just wasn’t going to happen for us. We were sad, but we started trying to find acceptance.

A few days later, I came back from walking the dog and there was a positive pregnancy test sitting on my desk.

We were ecstatic. Full-on tears of joy.

The very next day, we drove from D.C. to New Jersey for the Poirier vs. Islam fight, with baby in the wife’s belly. We bought a few souvenir cups at the event, only because they didn’t allow you to keep bottles, they forced you to use a cub. Cool to have but I didn’t think much of it, and when we got home I tossed them in a cabinet.

Eight or nine months later, our beautiful baby girl was born.

When it came time to give her her first bath, we realized we didn’t have anything to rinse her with. My wife sent me downstairs to find something, and the best I could come up with was that Poirier vs. Islam cup.

So that’s what we used.

For eight months.

That UFC souvenir cup became our daughter’s bath cup. It wasn’t planned. It just became part of our life.

So when I saw Dustin was going to be at the meet and greet and signing items, we knew exactly what we had to bring.

My wife told him the story, and he seemed to get a kick of of it. Got a “LET’S GO!” out of him. We got to chat with him for a few minutes, and I told him we’ve been enjoying his work on the desk and the podcast too.

Couldn’t have been a nicer dude.

Now the cup has gone from a random souvenir, to our daughter’s bath cup, to a signed piece of family history.

Pretty cool full-circle moment. So thank you, Dustin. You signed something way more meaningful to us than you probably realized.