Diaz hasn’t said much since a June fight in Saudi Arabia was cancelled. Now he’s hinting at a new fight date, followed by a run through all the fighters who have doubted him.
Nick Diaz is taking note of all the people talking trash about him as he struggles to return to the cage after another long layoff.
Diaz has been in a state of semi-retirement since a 2015 No Contest against Anderson Silva — originally a decision loss for Nick but overturned after “The Spider” tested positive for steroids. He popped back up in September 2021 to fight Robbie Lawler in a bout that had to be moved up to middleweight at the last minute. Diaz would sit down and quit in the third round as the fight turned against him, and reports after had him suffering from bulging discs in his neck.
Most recently, Diaz was booked to fight Vicente Luque in the UFC’s debut Saudi Arabia event. Then a month beforehand, cracks appeared in the fight and it was pulled due to an undisclosed ‘travel issue.’ That doesn’t mean the older Diaz brother is done, though.
“Don’t for a sec think I forgot about all you little fighters who had a lot of shit to say about me,” Diaz said in a new Instagram post teasing a fight announcement. “I’m going to hunt all you p—ies down one at a time after I’m done with this guy.”
The video attached to the comments featured Diaz being interviewed, although the sound is replaced with some music from the Deftones. Is this for a UFC promo? Could Diaz vs. Luque be getting rebooked, or is ‘this guy’ Diaz is talking about someone new?
Luque has been a patient man, considering the last two years he’s had. He’s suffered through four fight cancellations: a bout against Rafael Dos Anjos was pushed back a month, then a high profile Ian Machado Garry fight was scrapped outright after Garry caught the flu. Luque’s replacement opponent Sean Brady was medically pulled on fight week four months later. And then Nick Diaz dropped the Saudi fight.
His sole walk to the cage in the past 12 months has been a TKO loss to Joaquin Buckley, which isn’t ideal. Hopefully if the UFC is re-booking Diaz vs. Luque they have someone on standby in case Nick pulls another disappearing act. Because as much as we love the OG Stockton slapper, he’s not exactly the most reliable booking these days.
UFC CEO Dana White had previously said he was “not very confident” Diaz would make it back into the cage before the end of the year, but with the promotion preparing to drop its pay-per-view fight lineups for October, November, and December soon, now would be the time for it to happen if it will.