Nate Diaz vs. Mike Perry is a fight announcement that took the combat sports world by storm, and one half of a looming PFL headliner is waxing poetic about the long-desired fight. Bryan Battle is the combatant in question and takes on Johnny Eblen in the main event of PFL Pittsburgh on March 28th.

Since his UFC departure, Bryan Battle had multiple contests for DBX, with Perry helming the promoter role for Dirty Boxing Championship. The ‘Platinum’ Perry announcement for the Netflix MMA card that MVP is promoting sees Perry taking on Nate Diaz. This  news was freshly dropped before this Battle interview was conducted and when asked what his thoughts are on the Perry vs. Diaz fight coming up in May in Los Angeles, Battle said [via Bowks Talking Bouts],

“I literally just did an interview, and I just heard about that. I did not know that was happening until about 20 minutes ago. That is a crazy fight. Now I’ll be tuning into that. That’s a fight for the fans. You know what I’m saying? That’s like a love letter to the fans kind of fight. I know Nate [Diaz] and Mike [Perry] will deliver in that fight. So that’ll be a lot of fun. That’ll be a lot of fun. That’s just; all you can say about that fight is that it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Nate Diaz vs. Mike Perry may reportedly prevent the former from ever returning to the UFC

Nate Diaz vs. Mike Perry is a big box office bout that fans have wondered about for years, and a veteran MMA media member has intimated that it could ice Diaz out from future UFC opportunities. This was expressed by Luke Thomas on X, although the thread began with Ariel Helwani discussing that the UFC indicated interest in re-signing Diaz. The talks that were had regarding a Diaz return reportedly centred specifically on a long-discussed rubber match with Conor McGregor, per Helwani.

Responding to the tweet put out by @jedigoodman and adding an intriguing additional report component to the retweeted video of Helwani discussing this on his eponymous show, Luke Thomas stated,

“Not just this, but the way I heard it, [Nate] Diaz taking this fight closes the door on a UFC return completely. So whatever Diaz is making or planning for future fights, he’s doing so knowing there’s no UFC homecoming possible now.”