Nate Diaz appears to have taken yet another shot at Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in his latest Instagram story.
The 36-year-old native of Stockton, California just so happened to come across a cardboard cut-out of the “Brahma Bull”, and proceeded to punch it square in the face, in somewhat typical Diaz fashion.
This isn’t the first time that Diaz has taken issue with Johnson, largely going back to “The Great One” having close links and ties with Jorge “Gamebred” Masvidal. Obviously, both Johnson and Masvidal hail from Miami. Whilst this would certainly not seem to be worthy of being a catalyst for rivalry in its own right, the origin of said rivalry can be traced back to the events of UFC 244.
UFC 244 was Nate’s opportunity to affirm his fervent belief in being the true BMF of the UFC, and he still feels as though the chance to prove that was prematurely robbed from him with the doctor’s stoppage that occurred at the beginning of the fourth round. Ever since Johnson was present in the Octagon and subsequently presented Masvidal with the BMF belt, Nate has taken real issue with Dwayne.
This riled Diaz so much that he nuked “The Rock” during his post-fight press conference. Diaz, as previously mentioned, felt this was his prime moment to prove his superiority, especially over Masvidal, so such nuking is perhaps of little surprise.
”F**k The Rock too, man,” Diaz said after losing to Masvidal at UFC 244. “That motherf**ker over here playing me. See him over here smiling with Masvidal. Should have had Mike Tyson handing out a belt if anybody. I don’t give a f**k about any belt anyway, but he can get it too.”
At the time, Johnson tried to squash any potential beef with Diaz when reacting to the above comments.
“I wasn’t surprised at Nate’s comments because that’s the Nate that we all know and love,” Johnson said. “He is as advertised. Nate, he gets it. He knows that me and Jorge we’re boys, we’re from Miami. We have a lot of deep connections down there.
“A lot of the fighters we know, a lot of the coaches and trainers that we know, a lot of the gyms that we’ve been to down there. So there’s a connection, so no I was totally fine with it. He gets it.”
“Again I went into the fight, I wanted to be as neutral as possible when I was promoting it because as we’re leading up to it and selling it on pay-per-view I didn’t want to come out and say, ‘Jorge’s my boy and he’s gonna win,’” Rock said.
“No, I just wanted to be neutral and I thought that was the best, smartest, strategic play to get as many new eyes on this fight as possible and again help impact in my own little way the bottom line.
Do you think Nate Diaz really has beef with The Rock?