Former undisputed UFC welterweight title challenger, Nick Diaz has admitted that he was unprepared for his Octagon comeback at UFC 266 back in September 2021, claiming he knew a loss to former division champion, Robbie Lawler was on the cards in their rematch.
Diaz, a former undisputed WEC and Strikeforce titleholder, snapped his six-year Octagon hiatus back in 2021 in a middleweight rematch with former welterweight champion, Lawler, suffering a third round TKO loss due to retirement in their main card matchup.
The return came as Stockton native, Diaz’s first Octagon walk since headlining UFC 183 back in January 2015 in an eventual official ‘No Contest’ against former undisputed middleweight champion, Anderson Silva.
Expected to make his return to active competition later this year, Diaz, who has spent time training at the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas, Nevada – claimed he was interested in fighting incoming UFC 287 headliner, former middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya next.
Nick Diaz admits he was unprepared to make his UFC return back in 2021
However, reflecting on his UFC 266 return against Lawler and subsequent loss, Diaz admitted he was unprepared and “backed” into the comeback against the former.
“So I went into training camp, and I kind of got backed into it too,” Nick Diaz said on the Dying To See Me podcast. “I was in between management. It wasn’t like when I went and found a group to work with and organize my situation. I was going back and forth with the people I was working with and some of the old people I was working with during this training camp and my trainers.”
“So I couldn’t amount to a level of athleticism that I needed to be competitive,” Nick Diaz explained. “And I knew that going into the fight. Then, I was going into this fight like, ‘I really have it coming.’ So, I didn’t really go in there to win. I just needed to get that fight out. I hadn’t fought in a long time. I’d never fought under those conditions.” (Transcribed by BJPENN.com)