Business with Nick Diaz is always unusual, but the popular fighter’s brand these days has been defined by his absence. Speaking with TMZ, the former Strikeforce champ weighed in on the upcoming middleweight title fight between Michael Bisping and his old rival, Georges St-Pierre, and broke his own bit of surprising news.
“You want to know the truth right now? I talked to Michael Bisping already in New York about doing this fight,” said Diaz (h/t FoxSports.com’s Damon Martin). “There’s more money for him if he takes the fight with me. We were talking about a catchweight fight, he’s talking about it like it’s going to be hard to make the weight. I’m like come on. It would be a non-title fight.”
That’s an interesting take and even more interesting revelation from Diaz.
Since serving the controversial suspension he received following his UFC 183 bout with Anderson Silva, MMA‘s original moneyweight fighter has been keeping a disappointingly low profile. Despite the fact that the UFC is better suited now for a super-popular “event” fighter like Diaz than it ever has been, no fight has materialized and, based on appearances, nothing has even come close.
While speculation has abounded over why this is the case, the UFC has offered very little information about Diaz‘s future, while the Diaz camp has been almost totally silent. This interview, however, offers a window into what Diaz is looking for out of his return bout.
And he’s looking for money, not meaningless belts.
“After I whoop [Bisping‘s] ass, he still keeps the belt,” he said of a catchweight fight with the middleweight champ. “So that’s more money, then you go fight GSP. Same with Georges. I’m just doing more numbers than he is, so you can do more money to fight me.”
The good news from all this is that Diaz doesn’t seem to be retired and is still actively picking fights. The bad news? It doesn’t seem like those will come to fruition since neither side in the negotiations seems to be budging, meaning Diaz‘s holdout could continue for a good, long while.
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