Christian Petersen
UFC president Dana White wants to grant Nate Diaz’s wish but isn’t ready to talk specifics about the star fighter’s next bout.
Diaz made his request clear Wednesday on social media when he tagged UFC’s Twitter account and said he wanted to fight Dustin Poirier:
Nathan Diaz @NateDiaz209
<a href=”https://twitter.com/ufc?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@ufc</a> stop playing wit me consider this my signature to fight this fucker I been trying to fight for a minute quit slowing down the real fight game it’s time <a href=”https://t.co/6LTkbw9Fs0″>pic.twitter.com/6LTkbw9Fs0</a>
White responded to the post in an interview with ESPN’s Brett Okamoto:
“Of course we’re interested [in that fight]. This is what we do. We make fights every weekend. What happens is guys just want to jump out of nowhere. ‘I want to do this, I want to do that.’ We have fights booked all the way to, I want to say May 2. Everything is in place. Everything is done. Obviously, Nate Diaz will get a fight.”
Telling Okamoto that Diaz will get “a fight” isn’t quite the same as White firmly committing to Diaz vs. Poirier. He went on to speculate that an encounter between Diaz and Conor McGregor could be the route UFC takes.
Okamoto noted Diaz only has one fight left on his current contract with UFC.
With that in mind, the promotion might prefer to pair the 36-year-old with McGregor because that has major commercial potential. Diaz and McGregor fought twice in 2016, splitting the two meetings.
According to Tapology, they combined for the second and sixth-biggest pay-per-view buy rates in UFC history.
At least for now, Diaz’s focus is firmly on Poirier and vice versa.
Diaz his coming off a unanimous decision loss to Leon Edwards at UFC 263 in June, his first fight since 2019. Poirier opened 2021 with a pair of victories over McGregor before getting submitted in the third round by Charles Oliveira at UFC 269 in December.
The two were originally slated to cross paths at UFC 230 in 2018, but an injury to Poirier forced UFC to shelve those plans.
