A day before his first fight in over a year, 14th-ranked lightweight Nate Diaz failed to make weight prior to his co-main event bout with third-ranked Rafael dos Anjos at UFC on Fox 13 on Friday in Phoenix.
The 29-year-old Diaz, who TKO’d Gray Maynard in his last scrap in November 2013, weighed in at 160.6 pounds, according to a report by MMAFighting.com. The weight limit for the lightweight division in Arizona is 156 pounds.
Diaz‘s opponent, the streaking dos Anjos, tipped the scales at 156 pounds. The 30-year-old Brazilian was one of 24 other fighters on the card who made weight.
During an interview with Fox Sports 1 on Friday, per a report by MMAFighting.com, White expressed his frustration with the younger of the UFC’s Diaz brothers.
The Nate Diaz thing is a completely different scenario. The guy is complaining about money, but he’s done tons of things to ensure that he gets fined. He is complaining about the CM Punk deal. … All he’s been doing is complaining, not showing up for stuff, and now he doesn’t make weight and he’s four pounds over. I don’t know what to do with him if he wins. There’s a laundry list of problems there.
The incident marked the first time Diaz, a welterweight during stretches in his career, didn’t make weight. However, during his 2012 lightweight title fight with Benson Henderson, Diaz failed on his first two attempts at making the 155-pound limit in Washington, only to make the weight on his third and final attempt.
Because Diaz, who also didn’t show for the fight’s open workouts, didn’t make weight and dos Anjos did, the Californian will have to forfeit 20 percent of his purse to dos Anjos.
Prior to his win over Maynard, Diaz dropped back-to-back fights, first getting decisioned by Henderson and then getting TKO’d by Josh Thomson four months later.
A winner of his last two bouts, dos Anjos has only tasted defeat once since 2011, a unanimous-decision loss to top-ranked Khabib Nurmagomedov in April.
Second-ranked heavyweight Junior dos Santos will also return from more than a yearlong layoff from the Octagon when he faces the fast-blossoming Stipe Miocic in the night’s main event.
Cigano hasn’t graced the Octagon since falling to Cain Velasquez in their third fight in October 2013.
Fifth-ranked Miocic has won his last three fights, including a TKO over Fabio Maldonado in his last fight in May.
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