This Past Weekend<\/a> podcast, Diaz was asked about where he feels the business is headed with him preparing to return to MMA against Mike Perry on the May 16 Most Valuable Promotions card headlined by Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano. His answer spiraled into a lengthy rant about a potential UFC return, which he claims would have been a trilogy bout with McGregor, an opponent he isn\u2019t interested in revisiting at the moment.<\/p>\n\u201cFor instance, I think that if I went back to UFC, they want me to fight Conor McGregor right now,\u201d Diaz said. \u201cFor me, Conor McGregor just\u2014Pull up his record, do we got his record? I know this, but I\u2019m thinking about it, I\u2019m like, Conor McGregor just f*cking lost to [Dustin] Poirier. He got knocked out on his ass\u2026 so Poirier knocks his ass out and then he breaks his leg, which is horrible because Poirier\u2019s a sorry little bitch. I\u2019m like, he knocks him out and then he gets his leg broken and it\u2019s like, \u2018F*ck, that\u2019s f*cking horrible.\u2019 We\u2019re adversaries, but I\u2019m like, \u2018Bro, you broke your whole shit.\u2019 I don\u2019t wish that on nobody.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen I\u2019m like, I hope he comes back and does good. Then everybody\u2019s counting him out, I\u2019m like, alright, cool. I know he\u2019s having a hard time with the UFC because I\u2019ve been having a hard time with the UFC. I\u2019m like, \u2018Yo, good vibes, damn, handling your shit.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Diaz and McGregor had a memorable two-fight series in 2016, with Diaz handing McGregor his first-ever UFC loss at UFC 196 and then losing an immediate rematch via majority decision at UFC 202. A third fight has loomed over the rivals for the past decade, but is yet to come to fruition. McGregor has not fought since breaking his leg in a loss to Dustin Poirier in July 2021.<\/p>\n
With McGregor not on Diaz\u2019s radar right now, he let the UFC know he wants to face current \u201cBMF\u201d titleholder Charles Oliveira. Diaz innovated the belt in 2019, but never actually won it as he lost the inaugural BMF championship fight to Jorge Masvidal. It has since been featured as a specialty title for various bouts, most recently when Charles Oliveira defeated Max Holloway in a bout that was light on drama thanks to Oliveira\u2019s smothering grappling game. Diaz feels a fight with Oliveira is more meaningful than a third McGregor fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the meantime, I\u2019m doing whatever I\u2019m doing, and then when [McGregor] is ready to come back now and he\u2019s motivated and doing what he\u2019s got to do and I\u2019m like, \u2018OK, I want to fight motherf*cking BMF motherf*cker who\u2019s claiming my belt that\u2019s running all around,\u2019\u201d Diaz said. \u201cCharles Oliveira just won the fight. You\u2019re rocking my belt now and you\u2019re running around like you\u2019re the baddest motherf*cker, so that\u2019s where I\u2019m like, what\u2019s popping with the UFC, let\u2019s link up and get this fight popping. I go back to talk to them about it and they\u2019re all ready for me to come back and fight Conor. I\u2019m like, \u2018Whoa, whoa, whoa, listen to what I\u2019m talking about.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to fight the best of the best when they are the best of the best. Conor\u2019s great, but I\u2019m not trying to go kill off Conor when he\u2019s on his last dying f*cking leg, literally. That\u2019s f*cked up. I\u2019m not trying to be the ending to some f*cker\u2019s story like that. We ain\u2019t friends, we ain\u2019t none of that, but I ain\u2019t trying to finish this dude off. That\u2019s what I plan on doing if we\u2019re fighting. At the same time, I ain\u2019t trying to get f*cked up by nobody who just got knocked out on his ass and broke his leg, this guy\u2019s down and out, now he\u2019s nothing but motivated to fight me because who else are you going to fight in there? They\u2019re probably going to give him a f*cking BMF belt, f*cking bitch-ass Oliveira, who I believe I\u2019ll beat the f*cking shit out of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since parting ways with the UFC in 2022, Diaz has only competed in a pair of boxing bouts, losing to Jake Paul in August 2023 and then earning a measure of revenge over Masvidal with a majority decision win the following July. He didn\u2019t compete at all in 2025, but an offer to fight Perry, one of the faces of BKFC, piqued his interest for a return to MMA this year.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The UFC is] like, \u2018OK, we want you to come back and maybe later we\u2019ll do that,\u2019\u201d Diaz said. \u201cI\u2019m like, OK, well, you know who\u2019s doing a good job? Close to the same amount offer for Mike Perry, who\u2019s the f*cking most violent motherf*cker around right now. Doing things, taking over business, running shit, doing his own promotion. I\u2019m a lot more enthusiastic to get up and run and get ready to train for this motherf*cker who\u2019s going to knock me out or I\u2019m going to knock his ass out and we\u2019re going to take who\u2019s the bigger dog and the best motherf*ckers there are.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the meantime, I\u2019m not fighting for MVP, I\u2019m fighting for Netflix and I\u2019m fighting from Real Fight Inc., which I\u2019ll probably be doing with Netflix anyway, Real Fight entertainment on a thing, show you how to throw a real MMA fight show. I\u2019ve been in the UFC for 20 years now so I\u2019m like, yo, I\u2019m going to do that from Real Fighting. I\u2019m not working for f*cking MVP like all these other motherf*ckers are. I\u2019m a UFC fighter, I\u2019m working for me, for Real Fighting, and I\u2019m hunting Jake Paul\u2019s motherf*cking ass not taking a fight with a guy who\u2019s on the comeback. Me and Conor will fight again when the time is right, and it\u2019s to fight, but it\u2019s going to be when we both on the uprising. Not when someone\u2019s dying out. I\u2019m nobody\u2019s comeback story either, so I\u2019m fighting the most dangerous, most violent motherf*ckers there is on Netflix and then I\u2019m hunting his boy that he works with at MVP. So that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing right now. That\u2019s my objective and that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing. I didn\u2019t want to talk about it, but that\u2019s what\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
No matter what happens on May 16, Diaz is leaving the door open for future fights in the UFC, the promotion he called home for 15 years. Should he come back, he\u2019s going to make sure he has a say in who\u2019s standing across from him in the octagon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to go back to the UFC,\u201d Diaz said. \u201cYeah. I have bigger offers from the UFC than I got from these guys, but the opponents weren\u2019t the right opponents at the moment and I believe everything in this fight game\u2014and a lot of things\u2014but the fight game is timing. I think that if I would have went to the UFC, I wouldn\u2019t have been fighting the fighters that I want to be fighting. I want to fight the best of the best, and if I\u2019m not going to get that, then I\u2019m going to fight on the biggest thing I could that was offered me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Nate Diaz fights for the UFC again, it will be on his terms. Not the UFC\u2019s and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-573385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}