With fan favorite Nick Diaz’s 18-month suspension over last August and the Stockton slugger done paying his hefty fine, the MMA world just can’t help but wonder when – and against whom – the enigmatic star will return.
The most outspoken prospective opponent of Diaz has been UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley, who began voicing his aim at a “money fight” with Diaz a few minutes after he won the belt from Robbie Lawler in July 2016. He’s now set to rematch Stephen Thompson at March 4’s UFC 209 after he and ‘Wonderboy’ fought to a rousing draw at last November’s UFC 205, but Woodley’s inability to get a high-level bout with Diaz isn’t for his own lack of trying.
As usual, longtime veteran Diaz isn’t fond of the grind of fighting despite it being the only life he knows, and he’s often been seen and heard retiring after a loss only to come back for another pay-per-view (PPV) headliner when the offer contains enough commas. So much so, in fact, that Woodley said Diaz even turned down potential fights with Lawler (whom he’s knocked out) and even Conor McGregor because the money just wasn’t enough:
“It is not like Nick is scared of fighting you know,” Woodley said laughing. “He’s not scared to fight me or Robbie or Conor McGregor. Nick wants to get paid man. He’s held out in the past and it has worked out in his favor. He went out there and fought Anderson Silva for close to a million bucks. He knows that he pushes the needle. Plus there is a card, 209, so he understands what he is worth to that card. So I can’t knock him for that. It’s more of a situation of him wanting to get paid.”
Those are obviously huge fights, and a grudge match with current lightweight champ McGregor, who had an infamous rival with his brother Nate last year, would arguably be one of the biggest match-ups the UFC could sign for 2017.
But Diaz isn’t taking the bait, and he also reportedly turned down an immediate title shot against Woodley at UFC 209, the upcoming spring PPV card that bears the number of his honored area code. The current champion told MMA Fighting’s Luke Thomas that Nick was offered the fight but wanted to make more cash:
Apparently Woodley very nearly had a huge payday PPV main event, which means the UFC wanted to bring Diaz straight back into a title fight with one of the most powerful fighters in MMA, despite him only having fought twice in the Octagon in almost four years, instead of the consensus most deserving contender in ‘Wonderboy.’
The oldest Diaz brother hasn’t won a fight since he bludgeoned a fading BJ Penn way back at UFC 137 in 2011, a once-dominant champion who will return, ironically enough, to the 145-pound division to face rising star Yair Rodriguez this Sunday night.
Diaz may be dreading the cut down to 170 pounds as well, having not fought at the class where he rose to superstardom in Strikeforce since his UFC 158 decision loss to all-time great former champion Georges St-Pierre in March 2013. Although he returned to battle another one of the UFC’s greats in Anderson Silva, yet another failed drug test for marijuana metabolites, albeit amongst contested circumstances, served as a reminder why a main event with Nick Diaz is such a rare sight.
At this point, however, it would seem like the other kind of green is what’s holding back his latest MMA return.
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