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“That is his belt. The BMF belt, Nick is the BMF, if you will. That’s the perfect belt for Nick.”
After almost five years away from the sport, former Strikeforce welterweight champion Nick Diaz is back in the spotlight.
All it took was a long-winded interview with Ariel Helwani and a few digs at newly-crowned ‘BMF’ champ Jorge Masvidal and, just like that, the eldest Diaz brother is back in hot demand.
Die hard Diaz fans want to see Nick avenge younger brother Nate Diaz, who was beaten to a pulp by Masvidal in the UFC 244 main event earlier this month at Madison Square Garden.
Nick’s former coach and mentor, Cesar Gracie, thinks it would be the perfect matchup for Diaz and a chance for the quasi-retired star to introduce himself to a new generation of MMA fans.
“That is his belt. The BMF belt, Nick is the BMF, if you will. That’s the perfect belt for Nick,” Gracie said during a recent interview on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show (h/t MMA Mania). ”The hype on something like that would be so huge to fight a guy like that. You got to get fighters that are doing something now.”
“The Masvidal fight with Nate, I watched it and I thought, ‘okay, this guy has really good hands.’ He is a tough fighter,” Gracie added. “But I think Nick at his best, I don’t know how he would do, he’d have to be in shape. But the Nick Diaz I’ve seen at his best or anywhere near it, he crushes guys like that.
“I think it would be great for the fans who don’t know who Nick Diaz is. And let’s face it, there are a lot of new fans in the sport and Nick has been out for a long time. he fans who don’t know who Nick Diaz is, that would be a great showcase for him to come back.”
Although Masvidal will be keeping a close eye on the upcoming welterweight title bout between Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington at UFC 245, ‘Gamebred’ said it would be an ‘honor’ to fight Nick Diaz.
Diaz, 36, last fought almost five years ago at UFC 183, where he dropped a unanimous decision to Anderson Silva (later overturned to a NC after Silva tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs) in the main event at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena. Diaz also tested positive for marijuana metabolites and was suspended for 18 months.