Josh Thomson has explained why he doesn’t think the UFC will book the rumoured fight between Nate Diaz and Dustin Poirier.

For weeks now we’ve been hearing about a potential showdown between Nate Diaz and Dustin Poirier – a collision that has quite literally been years in the making. Unfortunately for mixed martial arts fans across the globe, it doesn’t appear as if we’re going to get it, at least not for the time being.

When discussing the booking and whether or not it’ll happen, Josh Thomson had the following thoughts.

“The UFC does not want to allow him [Nate Diaz] to fight a big name guy for the last fight on his contract. He wants to fight as soon as possible. We’ve talked about this a bunch of times, he wants to fight because he wants to get that last fight over with so he can either re-negotiate or just bounce out to boxing to fight somebody else, right? That’s what he wants to do. As soon as he comes out publicly and tells them, even privately, that he’s ready to fight, it’s on them.”

Nate Diaz is going to do what Nate Diaz wants to do and that’s been the case for a long time now. The UFC understands the value that he has as a main event star but given the risks involved, they may opt to go in a different direction for the final fight on his contract.

Poirier, meanwhile, will seemingly do anything to get back in the win column.

Do you agree with Josh Thomson? Are we going to see Nate Diaz vs Dustin Poirier take place in the first quarter of 2022? If so, who is going to be the favourite? Let us know your thoughts on this potential meeting down in the comments, BJPENN Nation!