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“Nobody to Fight”: UFC Superstar Nate Diaz Hints He May Never Fight in Dana White’s Promotion Again

Allan Binoy
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Nate Diaz steps in the ring for his 8-round main-event Cruiserweight bout at Paul vs Diaz at American Airlines Center on August 5, 2023 in Dallas, Texas.

Nate Diaz last laced up his gloves in July 2024 when he took on Jorge Masvidal at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. But it wasn’t even an MMA fight—it was a boxing match against ‘Gamebred.’ Since then, most of the Diaz buzz has been around his brother, Nick, potentially returning to the octagon. But Nate? He’s been practically ghosting the fight world.

And it’s not because he’s retired. Far from it. The man is just bored. But he was busy throwing water bottles at UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev and his team last year. So, why doesn’t he ring up Dana White?

In an interview with Full Violence, Diaz has claimed to be keeping his distance from the UFC and combat sports in general. His reason? It’s simple. There’s no excitement. Nothing’s drawing him back.

“There’s no buzz, nobody’s doing shit, there’s nobody to fight everybody’s whack. Every single body, in boxing and MMA,” Diaz bluntly stated.

 

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But there are exceptions. He admitted there are still a couple of fighters who manage to spark his interest—Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya. However, even then, he’s not exactly pumped about the current state of things.

Although he does like what ‘Poatan’ is doing in the UFC, that is not a fight he can make because of the difference in weight. The Brazilian is currently fighting at light heavyweight while Diaz fights at lightweight or welterweight.

And Adesanya, even though he cuts down to 185, is really big for a middleweight fighter, which means there’s not a lot for Diaz to do there.

Of course, if Masvidal returns to the UFC, he might interest the ‘Stockton Slugger’ to pick up the bat and play for the BMF title. But Masvidal seems to have been more interested in challenging lightweights like Michael Chandler.

So, could this be the end of Diaz’s legendary run in the UFC? For now, it’s hard to tell.

However, the end of a run in the UFC only means there are other promotions who want to cash in on his name. Prime among them is Misfits and their star player KSI

KSI wanted to fight Diaz initially

‘The Nightmare’ is making his return to the boxing ring on the next Misfits card on Saturday, 29 March, at the AO Arena in Manchester, England. He takes on Conor McGregor’s former training partner, Dillon Danis, in a grudge match years in the making. However, Danis was never his first choice.

During their promotional presser last week, ‘The Nightmare’ threw some shade at Danis and said, “I wanted Nate Diaz, and Nate Diaz said no.”

Diaz, on the other hand, probably doesn’t want to get involved in the influencer boxing again since he already fought Jake Paul once. Either that or KSI is not a big enough name for him to get into the ring with, which makes sense.

So, all we can do now is sit back and wait and hopefully, some fool says something foolish to get his attention.

Post Edited By:Smrutisnat Jena

About the author

Allan Binoy

Allan Binoy

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Allan Binoy is a MMA journalist at The SportsRush. Taken to the sport in 2015, thanks to a certain Conor McGregor, Allan has himself dabbled in the martial arts. And having graduated from Loyola College, Chennai, with a degree in English Literature, he has learnt to use his love for language to have a voice in the MMA community. Allan has been writing about the gladiatorial stories for more than three years now and has pursued excellence at a number of reputable media organizations, covering every UFC PPV in the last couple of years. In addition to this, the southpaw is also a semi-professional soccer player for Diego Juniors FC in Pune, playing in the Pune Super Division League.

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