{"id":556175,"date":"2026-03-22T03:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T03:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/556175\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T03:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T03:07:14","slug":"dana-white-met-with-nate-diaz-before-he-chose-mvp-im-happy-for-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/556175\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana White met with Nate Diaz before he chose MVP: ‘I’m happy for him’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dana White appears to have no ill will toward Nate Diaz bailing on the UFC.<\/p>\n

All signs were pointing to a Diaz return to the octagon, but instead the popular fighter from Stockton, Calif., signed with Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions to fight former UFC welterweight Mike Perry on May 16 at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif.<\/p>\n

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The fight will be part of the undercard for the blockbuster event headlined by Ronda Rousey’s return to MMA for a superfight against fellow women’s pioneer Gina Carano. The card streams on Netflix and also features Francis Ngannou<\/a> against Philipe Lins.<\/p>\n

Diaz hadn’t competed in MMA since submitting Tony Ferguson in September 2022. He then amicably parted ways with the UFC.<\/p>\n

“He came in and met with me a couple of weeks ago. We had a good time, and I think Nate just got an offer he couldn’t refuse,” White said during the UFC London post-fight news conference. “I haven’t talked to him since then, but I’m happy for him.”<\/p>\n

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Does that still leave the door open for a Diaz return? White was non-committal when he responded.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know,” White said. “Let him do his thing. Let’s see how the fight plays out, and we’ll see what happens.”<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Dana White ‘happy’ for Nate Diaz despite signing with MVP<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dana White appears to have no ill will toward Nate Diaz bailing on the UFC. All signs were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,958,786,29825,9225,785,22147,269777,85,11084,787],"class_list":["post-556175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dana-white","tag-fighting","tag-francis-ngannou","tag-jake-paul","tag-mma","tag-nate-diaz","tag-philipe-lins","tag-sports","tag-tony-ferguson","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}