We all knew it would be hard to get Nate Diaz back in the Octagon after back-to-back gigantic fights with Conor McGregor, but we had no idea it would be this difficult. Initially, we all thought he’d just be waiting until McGregor came back from his multi-million boxing bout, but that lag time just kept growing larger and larger until nothing. The MMA community’s ears peaked up when there was word of a bonkers fight between Tyron Woodley and Diaz to beef up UFC 219, but that has since been squashed. In a recent interview with Dana White, he not only says that the fight was never offered to begin with, but that Diaz has turned down every single fight he’s been offered for a year and a half.
“Nate Diaz has turned down a fight with everyone on the roster. We’ve been offering him fights for a year and a half.” -Dana on Nate
— Adam Hill (@AdamHillLVRJ) November 28, 2017
Dana says there was never officially an offer for Woodley vs. Diaz at UFC 219. Says one of the attorneys in the company spoke hypothetically to both fighters. “Our guy went off the reservation.”
— Adam Hill (@AdamHillLVRJ) November 28, 2017
“They’re trying to pressure me to fight Tony Ferguson, but what the f-ck, I’m going to cover for Conor McGregor and do his work while he’s out making f-cking millions of dollars fighting boxers and sh-t? I’m not covering for you, bro. You guys fight each other. I heard Tony’s manager talking, saying that I need to get a fire up under Conor McGregor’s ass if I want to fight him for the third time. Like, I gotta’ do what? You guys should fight each other, motherf-cker. You guys have the same manager. You guys are working together against me. You guys need me to do the work for you? F-ck off. I ain’t asking for no money fights, because you know what? I am the money fight.” — Nate Diaz on The MMA Hour back in May.
As much as we’d like to see Nate Diaz fight someone again, he made $2 million at UFC 202 and that was just to show up. It doesn’t make much “cents” to fight anyone else if he’s still making money doing Triathlons and from his multiple scholarships. It seems like it is either capping off the trilogy with McGregor potentially at lightweight, or Diaz is happy to not fight again for quite some time.
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 11/28/2017.