Nate Diaz had a likelihood to return to the UFC however as an alternative took a fight towards Mike Perry on the upcoming Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano card on May 16 with the occasion airing on Netflix.
After the fight was introduced, UFC CEO Dana White revealed that the promotion had been in talks to carry Diaz again however he believed Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions just made him “an offer he couldn’t refuse.” When he addressed the state of affairs publicly, Diaz later claimed the UFC really provided him more money to make his return for a trilogy fight towards Conor McGregor and he turned it down.
Diaz said that he wasn’t desirous about going through McGregor on his “last dying f*cking leg” after being out of motion for the previous 5 years. But retired UFC welterweight Matt Brown simply isn’t shopping for it, particularly understanding that Diaz has been one of many smartest fighters on the market when it comes to maximizing his worth to take advantage of money attainable throughout his profession.
“Money talks,” Brown mentioned on The Fighter vs. The Writer. “He’s making more money with this Netflix fight than he would with the UFC. That’s why he’s not fighting Conor in the UFC. I lean towards believing Dana on this. He got an offer he couldn’t refuse. Now how Nate’s spinning it with the way the contract is structured, maybe there’s something behind the scenes under some layers that we’re not privy to just yet. But there’s no way he’s not making more money.
“I don’t believe it for a second that he’s not making more money with this Netflix deal, however that plays out, his bank account ends up with more money from this fight than it does in the UFC or he doesn’t take the fight. He’s going to pick the highest bidder. I don’t think that’s unique to [Nate Diaz], but I think he understands this is prize fighting. He’s fighting for money. He’s going to take the highest pay.”
During that very same interview, Diaz mentioned he was solely desirous about going through the most effective of the most effective and Perry certified, particularly after he’s gone on actually monumental run because the face of bare-knuckle preventing in BKFC.
On the MMA aspect, Perry left the UFC on a 1-4 skid earlier than turning into a celebrity in BKFC. In a unusual twist, McGregor really fought in MMA more just lately than Perry however the “King of Violence” has clearly been very energetic over the previous few years along with his bare-knuckle profession not to point out taking a boxing match towards Jake Paul.
Maybe Diaz simply genuinely desires to face the absolute best competitors at this stage of his profession however Brown argues that each fighter needs to be looking for the most important pay whatever the opposition. In this specific case, Brown agrees that Perry is a more durable fight than going through McGregor however that logic additionally doesn’t persuade him if the UFC actually was making him a more profitable supply.
“Nate’s a hittable guy. I don’t think that’s an insult to him. I think he knows that himself. But he gets hit in fights and Mike Perry hits very hard. He’s going to have to withstand those shots to be able to keep peppering him [late in the fight]. That’s Nate’s path to victory on paper. We know fights never play out the way that the paper says it will, but on paper, that’s the narrative I think we would see.
“Whereas Conor, dude you already beat him twice, you know what to do. I think he won the second fight, too, but it’s neither here nor there. It’s a way, way bigger fight. Whether the viewership numbers reflect that or not, the actual fight and the media, the attention, the fight fans that care, even mainstream, Diaz and Conor is probably the biggest fight the UFC could even make right now outside of maybe [Alex] Pereira-Jon Jones and honestly Conor-Diaz is probably bigger than that just because of the publicity.”
Obviously the door isn’t closed for Diaz to nonetheless return to the UFC in the future, particularly understanding that his cope with MVP is simply for the upcoming fight towards Perry.
That mentioned, Brown actually believes Diaz in all probability wished to management his personal future transferring ahead and maybe the UFC’s supply got here together with situations like signing a multi-fight deal to return to the octagon.
Whatever the rationale, Brown simply doesn’t see Diaz passing on a larger payday as a result of he most well-liked preventing Perry over McGregor.
“Either there’s something more to this like potentially he didn’t want to sign another contract with the UFC or something along those lines,” Brown mentioned. “When they say an offer he can’t refuse, maybe that wasn’t just money. Maybe there’s something else behind the scenes with that. When he says they offered him more money, up front they offered him more money — is there some backdoor thing going on? It doesn’t make sense to me that he would just simply accept lesser pay for what is probably going to be a tougher fight for him.
“There’s something where the math is not adding up. There’s some things that are going behind the scenes, behind closed doors that we don’t know about. Consolidating the whole thing down to just one sentence, which is Nate’s style and part of why they’re so popular [the Diaz brothers] and why they’re such good at talking publicly and saying things. The way he put it was ‘I beat Conor’s ass easy, I don’t want to do that to him.’ There’s more to it than that. That’s all there is to it. I don’t know what it is. You don’t know what it is. But there’s more layers here that we’re just not able to uncover.”
