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Diaz has a history of playing spoiler at the expense of up-and-coming superstars.

Nate Diaz will (finally) return to combat sports action when he collides with welterweight phenom Khamzat Chimaev in the upcoming UFC 279 pay-per-view (PPV) main event on Sept. 10 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Diaz remains a huge betting underdog against “Borz” in what could be the Stockton slugger’s final appearance under the UFC banner. But not everyone is expecting this to be the one-sided mismatch the betting lines reflect.

“I don’t really think Khamzat is as good as they say he is,” welterweight contender Jorge Masvidal told MMA Fighting. “I haven’t seen anything that makes me a believer in this guy yet. They probably wanted to pair Diaz with someone, stylistically, that’s not the best when I think of fucking Khamzat, so they gave him a boring ass wrestler who is going to try and hug his legs, and sniff his crotch.”

Diaz, who turned 37 back in April, fell to 20-13 with a unanimous decision loss to top contender Leon Edwards at UFC 263 back in June 2021. It was the second straight loss for The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 5 champ, who’s now dropped three of his last four.

The 28 year-old Chimaev improved his undefeated record to 11-0 by outlasting former title challenger Gilbert Burns in their “Fight of the Night” war at UFC 273 last April. The victory over “Durinho” was enough to land “Borz” at No. 3 in the official welterweight rankings.

“That was supposed to be his coming out party and it didn’t go according to plan,” Masvidal said. “A lot of people felt Gilbert won that fight — a lot of people still think Gilbert won that fight. I think Khamzat probably wins, but I can see Nate putting him away in rounds four or five because Khamzat doesn’t have that gas tank. He doesn’t have that experience, and I think he gets too in the moment where he’s wasting energy doing stupid shit. Nate is going to conserve all of that energy and get in his face when it counts. I think Khamzat should win, but I won’t be surprised if Nate stops his ass.”

We’ll find out in roughly one month.

Dana White questioned the official explanation for Jake Paul’s latest fight cancellation.

Last week Jake Paul saw his scheduled debut at the historic Madison Square Garden go down in flames when his promotion company, MVP, called off his fight with Hasim Rahman Jr.

In a press release MVP claimed they were forced to cancel the fight after Rahman told Paul’s team that he had no intention of weighing in at the agreed upon limit of 200 lbs. MVP further claimed that it had offered a weight limit increase up to 205 lbs, but that Rahman claimed he would weigh in at 215 lbs instead.

UFC President Dana White, who is no friend of Paul’s, didn’t buy that official explanation. Instead, White claimed that Paul cancelled the event due to poor ticket sales.

“I think they sold under a million dollars in tickets and it cost $500,000 to turn the f—ng lights on at MSG,” claimed White earlier this week. “That’s what I think. Not to mention the fact that hotel rooms in New York and transportation and everything else is very expensive.”

MMA Fighting reached out to Madison Square Garden to ask if there was any validity to White’s claim. According to the venue, White is wrong in his assessment of what went down.

“To be clear, sales were strong heading into fight week — the cancellation was not based on ticket sales,” said the MSG representative. “This fight was projected to be in the top 10 of highest grossing boxing events at MSG in the past 15 years.”

The MSG spokesperson added that the venue is eager to work with Paul again, despite this cancellation.

“MVP has been great partners and we’re looking forward to working with them again soon.”

When White touted his conspiracy theory on the fight cancellation he also took a dig at Paul’s business partner Nakisa Bidarian (a former chief financial officer for the UFC).

“I will say this: just because you’re an accountant here, doesn’t mean you know what the f—k goes on here, and doesn’t mean you can run a fight promotion company,” said White — referring to Bidarian.

Bidarian clapped back at White, stating that the Paul vs. Rahman event had already sold more tickets than Ryan Garcia’s latest fight at LA’s Staples Center and that his event was tracking to be one of the top-ten gates at MSG since 2005.

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