Jake Shields claims that Nick Diaz wasn’t ready to take the fight with Robbie Lawler but was pressured into it.
Diaz had his first fight since Jan. 2015. He went one-on-one with Lawler on the main card of UFC 266. The bout was scheduled for five rounds but it ended in the third stanza. Lawler scored the TKO finish.
After the fight, Shields, Diaz’s longtime training partner and friend, took to his Twitter account to say that Diaz only had six weeks to prepare.
“Nick Diaz is a f*cking legend 6 years off And six weeks to train and still makes fight of the night.”
“Wanted to do a fight later but was pressured to take it before he was ready. People care about money, not his health.”
Diaz had been adamant about not asking for the Lawler fight. He even told ESPN’s Brett Okamoto that he felt he should’ve been challenging Kamaru Usman for the UFC Welterweight Title.
“I think I’ll beat the sh*t out of Usman,” Diaz said. “I’ll have a better shot against Usman than I do Lawler, just because I already beat Lawler. This doesn’t make sense for me to go in and fight Robbie Lawler again. I don’t know why I’m doing this. … This should not happen. Whoever set this up is an idiot. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t know why this happened. I should be fighting Kamaru Usman – and that’s it.”
Even during his post-fight interview, Diaz said he wasn’t a fan of how his return was set up by the UFC. With that said, the Stockton native did admit that he felt good returning to the Octagon in front of his fans. Time will tell whether or not Diaz decides to keep going with his career.