Nate Diaz: ‘I Should Be Boxing But I’m Stuck In A Cage’

The younger brother took to social media leading up to Canelo-Jacobs to lament the limbo his fight career is currently stuck in.

On Saturday night, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez won a hard fought decision victory over Daniel Jacobs in boxing, unifying the WBA, WBC, and IBF middleweight titles (watch the highlights here). It wasn’t the most exciting fight we’ve ever seen, but both men will be paid extremely well for their efforts.

Canelo is estimated to make somewhere around $35 million off his fight on DAZN. Jacobs will make $10 million, or was set to before he lost $1 million of that for ballooning up past a contractually stipulated fight-day weight limit of 170 pounds.

Jacobs just lost more money on a technicality than most UFC fighters see in a year. Most have just decided that’s the way it is, though, and keep on keeping on. Even guys like Al Iaquinta have made their peace with the UFC’s pay structure and found a somewhat comfortable place where they don’t feel like they’re getting screwed too severely.

Not Nate Diaz.

The younger Diaz brother took to Facebook on the night of Alvarez-Jacobs with a message.

”I should be boxing these guys,” he wrote. “I’m stuck in a cage though.”

Nate hasn’t fought in the UFC since back to back fights against Conor McGregor made him enough money to never fight again. But unlike his older brother Nick, he’s still keeping in fighting shape. According to the people around him, the big sticking point in another Nate fight is money, as in the UFC won’t pay him enough.

We did almost see Nate return against Dustin Poirier at UFC 230, but the moment that got booked things turned sour. Nate left a press conference announcing that fight in anger after the UFC used it to promote their entire fall slate of bouts and the return of Conor McGregor. If he’d hoped that the UFC would at least push him as a special top tier draw in lieu of cash money, he was disappointed in what he saw. When Poirier bowed out with an injury, Nate took the opportunity to drop off the card and there’s no sign he’ll be back any time soon.

Now the only question is whether waiting on the sidelines long enough will secure Nate his release to go and box. UFC contracts have been pretty ironclad up until this point, automatically extending so long as the promotion keeps on offering fighters matches. So as Nate said, for now it seems like he really is stuck in a cage.