Michael Bisping has a lot of respect for Nick Diaz, but he hasn’t heard anything from the UFC about a possible fight with him.
Ever since Michael Bisping stated that he was going to fight once more before retiring, a great many fighters have been rumored to be facing him. One by one, Bisping has shot them all down – and the latest of which is Stockton’s finest, Nick Diaz.
Diaz hasn’t competed in a very long time, but recently came off of suspension and UFC president Dana White thinks he will step into the Octagon again. That led to rumors that he could take on Bisping in his swansong bout, but on his podcast Believe You Me, Bisping put that one to bed (transcribed by mmanytt.com):
“No, no. I’m not fighting Nick Diaz, it’s all total bullsh-t. I haven’t spoken to the UFC about anything, they haven’t even come to me. In fact, I’m a little bit offended the Ultimate Fighting Championship – what the f—k?”
He did have an interesting story to tell about the one time he hung out with Diaz in a club and they talked about fighting each other:
“So here’s the deal with Nick Diaz,” Bisping said. “A while ago I was in New York. I was doing some PR stuff for the UFC and I went to a club, actually, with a friend of mine, couple of friends and lo and behold – there was Nick Diaz.
“Great guy, we hung out, we had some drinks, we had a good time and he suggested that we should fight each other at 170. And I’m like ‘I can’t do 170, so we were talking about a catchweight and I said ‘Nick, I’d love to, man. You’ve got a huge name in this sport,’ you know? It was a very pleasant conversation. There was no nastiness, you know what I mean? There was no bitching. I was like ‘come on dude, you have to come up, making 185 kills me’ and this and that.”
“But really I think we were just having fun with it more than anything. It never materialized into any actual real discussion of a fight, and of course since then he got banned or suspended – that whole thing with the weed which was ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. Fortunately, the commission did the right thing and he’s back. But I don’t know were these rumors started, I don’t know who started it but it’s bullshit. I haven’t heard a single thing. The UFC haven’t reached out, my management haven’t reached out – no one has said anything, no word what so ever.”
It did seem like a bit of a stretch anyway. Diaz has competed at 185 before – his last UFC fight was at middleweight against Anderson Silva, after all – but with all the 185ers lining up for a Bisping bout, a natural welterweight doesn’t seem like the best fit. But this is the 2018 UFC, where championships are made up and weight classes don’t matter, so who knows.