Nate Diaz conducted a rare and lengthy interview a few days ago with ESPN, revealing that he intends to return to action in this year after taking an entire year off in 2020. If everything works out, we could see the Stockton slugger compete at the very least twice in 2021, a rare sight indeed seeing as how he has preferred to take lengthy breaks over the last few years.
Among the fights Diaz is interested are going toe-to-toe against current top Lightweight contenders Dustin Poirier and Charles Oliveira. Those two names coming out of Nate’s mouth isn’t out of sheer coincidence seeing as how “Diamond” and “Do Bronx” are the two leading contenders to take part in a Lightweight title fight should the promotion eventually vacate the title.
Something that seems to be long overdue.
And that’s just where Oliveira’s eyes are set, shutting down Diaz’s challenge on social media with the quickness. “No interest, homie,” wrote Oliveira as his status on Twitter,” before following it up assuring him that capturing the 155-pound strap is his goal.
Oliveira has stood firm in his stance of waiting for his potential shot at becoming UFC champion. The Brazilin jiu-jitsu ace turned down the chance to face Michael Chandler at UFC 257 citing that a weight cut wouldn’t be feasible since he was fresh off a dominant win over tony Ferguson at UFC 256.
He then turned down another pivotal fight once more for this weekend’s UFC 258 event, this time admitting that he preferred to hold out for the belt, and taking a short notice bout against a dangerous foe such as Chandler — who knocked out Hooker at UFC 257 — wasn’t the best way to go about it.
There is no telling if constantly shutting down fight offers or challenges are going to hurt Oliveira’s chance o getting his name called should a title fight for a vacant strap be made, but when you’ve put in as much work as he has and won as many fights as he has (eight) in the last two years, you can’t blame him for keeping his eye on the real prize.
Right?