{"id":580602,"date":"2026-04-02T11:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T11:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/580602\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T11:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T11:11:09","slug":"ufc-commentator-defends-nate-diaz-rejecting-conor-mcgregor-fight-not-about-the-paycheck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/580602\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC Commentator Defends Nate Diaz Rejecting Conor McGregor Fight: ‘Not About The Paycheck’"},"content":{"rendered":"

UFC commentator Jon Anik has backed Nate Diaz<\/a>‘s decision to turn down a trilogy fight against Conor McGregor<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Diaz recently revealed he turned down a UFC offer<\/a> to return this year for a fight against the Irishman. The 40-year-old explained he still believes he can compete against the best fighters in the world and requested a bout with Charles Oliveira instead.<\/p>\n

Jon Anik Calls Diaz’s Stance ‘Refreshing’<\/p>\n

Speaking on Submission Radio<\/a>, Anik praised the fighter for prioritizing competitive merit over financial gain.<\/p>\n

I think it’s the biggest fight and it makes a lot of sense,” Anik said. “That’s not the fight that he was looking for and I think that’s a little bit refreshing if I could take that side of it, to hear Nate say that he wants something that maybe competitively for him is more juicy, that he’s not necessarily there for the pageantry or the biggest possible pay check.<\/p>\n

\"Jon<\/p>\n

Jon Anik – What’s NEXT for Adesanya, Can Strickland Beat Khamzat? Ronda\/Carano, McGregor Opponent?<\/p>\n

Conor McGregor Trilogy Replaced by Max Holloway Bout<\/p>\n

With the Stockton native out of the picture, Max Holloway has emerged as the frontrunner to face McGregor in his targeted comeback<\/a>. Holloway recently lost his BMF title at UFC 326.<\/p>\n

The promotion is reportedly targeting UFC 329 during International Fight Week for McGregor’s return. The former ESPN<\/a> anchor expressed enthusiasm for both potential matchups involving “The Notorious.”<\/p>\n

It may be a little inside baseball of me to think of that Max Holloway fight in the terms that I do but I would really like to see that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Charles Oliveira fight makes a lot of sense as well and as I\u2019m commentating the BMF title fight with Charles Oliveira and Max Holloway, the whole time, (Joe) Rogan and I are thinking, wow, not man, this is boring.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, Charles and Conor for the BMF belt makes a lot of sense, Holloway makes a lot of sense.<\/p>\n

Despite signing with MVP MMA for his next fight, Diaz’s decision likely doesn’t rule out a potential future return to the UFC for a McGregor trilogy down the line.<\/p>\n

Nate Diaz is set to face Mike Perry on the MVP MMA Netflix card scheduled for May 16th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC commentator Jon Anik has backed Nate Diaz‘s decision to turn down a trilogy fight against Conor McGregor.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,4736,786,785,22147,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-580602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-conor-mcgregor","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-nate-diaz","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580602","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=580602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}