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Nate Diaz was one of the ultra rare few that managed to get away from the UFC and go on to find career and/or financial success. His split from the UFC wasn’t acrimonious, even if there were plenty of moments that made us all collectively wonder if there’d ever be peace between them. When he left, Nate never fully closed the door on a return, and his longtime coach Cesar Gracie even opined that a return wouldn’t be out of the question.
Nate Diaz talks UFC return
So, when Nate guested on Bradley Martyn’s Raw Talk, it wasn’t any real surprise to learn that he does indeed see himself returning to the warm embrace of the octagon. Here’s Bloody Elbow’s transcript of what he had to say:
Bradley Martyn: Will you ever fight again in the UFC?
Nate Diaz: Yeah.
Bradley Martyn: You will?
Nate Diaz: Yeah.
Bradely Martyn: Okay. Do you know when that would be?
Nate Diaz: I’m gonna get this fight done with and then everything changes with every fight. People don’t understand that everything changes with every fight. Every fight that happens its like, how do you say it? It changes the whole bracket. When a fight happens, everything changes.
Bradley Martyn: Even a fight that’s out of the UFC?
Nate Diaz: Out of the UFC—big performances, good performances. People see Jake Paul coming in yelling crazy shit at people. I ain’t gonna lie dude, this guy thinks he’ll beat everyone’s ass and he’s louder than all you fools that are really beating people’s ass. So, now I have to step out the box real quick and whip this motherf-cker’s ass so everyone knows who’s the real asswhipper. You understand what I’m saying?
Bradley Martyn: Absolutely.
Nate Diaz: ‘Oh it’s a mismatch’ and this and that. I’m like pffft, ‘Then you fight him mother-cker.’ Make sure the best fight that everybody wants to see actually happens because that’s what I’m here to see when I’m watching fighting.
Bradley Martyn: That’s what we all want.
Nate Diaz: And this fool’s popping off, ‘We’re real fighters.’ Oh yeah, prove it, mother-cker. Go beat his ass for talking shit.
Bradley Martyn: I like it. So, you’re saying there’s people in the fight game that are kinda like pussy for talking like that? Like they say it but they’e not out stepping to do it. Then again, they don’t all get the opportunity to do it, right? Because Jake’s always picking people that can make a big fight. You, I know historically, have pulled massive PPV numbers, so of course he’s trying to go towards you.
Nate Diaz: He was going after everybody, though.
Bradley Martyn: That’s true.
Nate Diaz: People don’t understand that, though. On that big a stage where he’s making everybody believe him, and this guy is talking shit to the whole roster and ain’t no one saying shit, and he’s louder than the roster. The UFC’s big, but the roster…you know what I’m saying? And then he was talking shit to Conor.
Bradley Martyn: Yeah, he was trying to get the Conor fight.
Nate Diaz: He was talking shit to Conor and dissing his wife and shit. Some real disrespectful stuff that he shouldn’t have been saying and nobody’s saying shit. I’m the one who said ‘Shut the f-ck up, bitch. I’ll whip your ass for real. Have some respect.’
There’s only one fight to make
The prospect of Nate Diaz coming back to the UFC might be great news for some, but if we’re realistic, there is really only one fight to make and that would be the trilogy bout with Conor McGregor. Outside that, he would need to be very carefully matched. In another portion of that interview, Nate was asked if he thought Jake was going to be an easy fight. He said it wasn’t and that he only wanted the hard fights. If that’s the case, I doubt he’d even want careful matchmaking.
Nate Diaz will meet up with Jake Paul on August 5, 2023 in Dallas, TX at the American Airlines Center. The card is billed as Ready 4 War.
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