The always cryptic Nate Diaz took to social media with one word for his fans: ‘December.’ Could he step in to the UFC’s big year end pay-per-view event?
Nate Diaz has a single fight left on his UFC contract, and it sounds like he’s looking to get it booked up as soon as possible.
We last saw the younger Diaz brother in the cage back in June where he lost a unanimous decision to Leon Edwards at UFC 263. The loss drops him to 1-2 since returning to action in 2019 after a three year hiatus, but simple constructs like wins and losses don’t seem to affect Nate’s fame like they do lesser fighters. Everyone is still hyped to see him, so when he dropped this cryptic message on Twitter, his fans went wild:
December
— Nathan Diaz (@NateDiaz209) November 14, 2021
The implication everyone’s drawing is that Nate may step in on short notice to fight at UFC 269 on December 11th. And while we’d be pretty shocked if the UFC and Diaz managed to sort out a shotgun fight for the impending card, there is a star-filled gap that needs to be filled after Jorge Masvidal dropped off the card earlier this week.
Masvidal was set to fight Leon Edwards, who seemed uninterested in accepting any last minute replacement options. One of those options was Khamzat Chimaev, who UFC president Dana White has been trying to matchmake with Nate since Chimaev squashed his last opponent at UFC 267 in October. Could that be in the cards? Could someone else?
Or is this just Nate continuing to message his wants and desires, removed from the realities of frustrating UFC negotiations? Diaz has been talking about a December fight for a couple months now and nothing has materialized. Other MMA managers in the know have speculated that the UFC wouldn’t mind holding on to Diaz until Conor McGregor is healthy enough for a rubber match sometime mid to late 2022. So don’t get your hopes too high.