Why did Nate Diaz disappear for 3 years after the most important struggle of his life?
VENICE, Calif. — It is 2 a.m. on a weekday, which suggests even this vibrant, fashionable space west of L.A. is nearly silent. Nate Diaz, nevertheless, is unsleeping.
Sitting on a sofa in the lounge of his Airbnb, two blocks away from Venice Seaside, Diaz is participating in one in all his favourite pastimes: scrolling by way of his Instagram feed. A member of his crew jokes that if Diaz does not reply to a textual content, and also you wish to know if he is deliberately ignoring you, verify his Instagram exercise. As a result of if he has his telephone, he is nearly at all times liking one thing.
Tonight, it is a video of his outdated pal Snoop Dogg. In it, Snoop is sitting in a tub, his signature braids coated in suds.
“I informed you, man,” Snoop says. “Ain’t nothing like taking a m—–f—ing bubble tub.”
Diaz, who on the time is 5 weeks away from a welterweight contest towards Anthony Pettis at UFC 241 — his first struggle in three years — tilts his head again and laughs. “That s—‘s humorous as hell.”
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UFC 241 Content material:
• Why did Nate Diaz disappear?
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• UFC 241 finest bets
• Breaking down Cormier-Miocic II
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On this setting — surrounded by individuals he trusts, contemporary off a sparring session, a glass bong inside attain — Diaz is the focus. Animated, outgoing, humorous. He acknowledges most individuals do not get to see him like this. Most individuals have not seen a lot of Diaz, interval, since his blockbuster rematch towards Conor McGregor in 2016.
“Oh, I discuss,” says Diaz, when it is introduced up how quiet he has been lately. “I discuss all day round [my older brother] Nick. He’ll be like, ‘Cease speaking.'”
Diaz’s total vibe modifications, nevertheless, the second it is clear a dialog has become an interview. An interview, by the best way, that Diaz initially agreed would happen 12 hours earlier on the Venice Seaside Boardwalk. However on the scheduled 2 p.m. begin time, Diaz needed to “go for a run.” Plans modified to begin the interview at three:30 p.m. Then four:45. Perhaps 11. Finally, 2 a.m.
And when the cameras are lastly rolling, and Diaz is requested the million-dollar query — Why, after one of many greatest fights in UFC historical past, did you disappear for 3 years? — it takes him a minute to heat up. To get comfy. Despite the fact that, simply 5 minutes in the past, he was the chattiest particular person within the room.
What’s unusual about this sudden change is that Diaz has a solution. He is simply hesitant to share it. It is well-known he nearly by no means grants interviews, and that is no coincidence. If there’s one factor Diaz is acutely protecting of, it is the message he shares and with whom he shares it.
“These guys [the Diaz brothers], they’re gonna really feel you out and get to know you earlier than they let you know something,” says Gilbert Melendez, Diaz’s buddy and coaching associate for over a decade. “Most individuals on this sport have a tendency to only provide up their story. However Nate, he nearly interviews you earlier than you get to interview him.”
However tonight, on this nondescript room that now smells faintly of marijuana, Diaz has agreed to be interviewed. And the world desires to know, Nate: The place have you ever been?
It feels like a easy query, but it surely bears a fancy clarification. Diaz’s prepare of thought isn’t a straight line. At one level, in the midst of a query, he abruptly stands up to make use of the restroom.
And greater than as soon as, he feels the necessity to lean ahead and ensure the message he believes in so strongly is not getting misplaced in translation.
“Is that this all making sense?”
Nate Diaz says that after UFC 202, the promotion “ostracized” him. Brandon Magnus/Zuffa LLC by way of Getty Photographs
THERE WAS A time in Diaz’s 15-year profession when he believed he had the complete consideration and assist of the UFC. He simply did not know what to do with it.
In 2007, at 22, Diaz received “The Final Fighter” actuality TV collection. Competing as a light-weight, he completed all 4 of his opponents on the present, and was simply the season’s most memorable character. He went on to win his subsequent 4 fights within the UFC, which prompted UFC president Dana White to increase him a private invitation to Las Vegas.
“Dana White’s flying me out like, ‘Hey, let’s play poker and do that and that,'” says Diaz, who was born and raised in Stockton, California. “I am only a child. He takes me to play poker — properly, I do not f—ing know play no poker. I am in Vegas with Dana White in a Ben Davis jacket, like, ‘What’s up? What are we about to do?’
“Now, I understand, ‘Oh. That was my time.’ I used to be too f—ing younger. I did not know nothing about none of that.”
At the moment, Diaz was doing what most younger fighters do — no matter they’re informed. He misplaced two shut choices in 2009. Moved as much as welterweight for a contemporary begin, however struggled with the dimensions distinction. After transferring again all the way down to 155 kilos, Diaz went on a roll and earned a title shot towards Benson Henderson in 2012, solely to be sad with the paycheck connected to it. He misplaced that struggle, and grew brazenly disgruntled along with his contract. On the peak of his discontent, Diaz accepted only one struggle in a two-year span, a call loss towards Rafael dos Anjos.
In 2016, Diaz got here to gather on every little thing he felt the game owed him. He created warmth with the game’s greatest star, Conor McGregor, throughout a postfight interview after defeating Michael Johnson. He accused McGregor of taking every little thing he’d labored for.
The callout labored. Diaz booked the McGregor struggle at UFC 196 that March, and submitted him within the second spherical. 5 months later, Diaz agreed to a direct rematch — though he by no means felt McGregor deserved one.
In keeping with experiences, the rematch at UFC 202 set the corporate document for highest-selling pay-per-view on the time with an estimated 1.6 million buys. It was the most important struggle in UFC historical past. And Diaz had made up half of it.
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However as soon as McGregor edged out a majority choice within the second assembly, Diaz felt just like the UFC turned its again on him. In his phrases, the promotion “ostracized” him. Moderately than grant him a direct shot at payback, because it had for McGregor, the UFC booked McGregor in a light-weight championship bout towards Eddie Alvarez in New York. And the next summer time, the UFC helped promote one of many greatest fights of all time, a boxing match between McGregor and Floyd Mayweather.
Diaz, 34, says he has nothing towards McGregor’s success. That is the UFC machine working for McGregor, the best way it may need labored for Diaz again in 2008 had he realized what White was actually providing in that Vegas invitation. Had Diaz stopped preventing simply anyone in 2008 and brought full benefit of the UFC machine behind him, how a lot completely different would his profession have been?
There is not any strategy to know. However what Diaz did know was that after reaching the head of the game’s reputation in 2016, he was by no means going backward. If the UFC did not wish to make a McGregor trilogy bout immediately, high quality. However the place was his model of McGregor’s title struggle towards Alvarez? The place was his Mayweather?
“Now, I understand, ‘Oh. That was my time.’ I used to be too f—ing younger. I did not know nothing about none of that.”
Nate Diaz on his Vegas assembly with Dana White in 2008
What Diaz needed was for the corporate he’d been working for since he was 22 to give you a plan for him, the identical manner it had for McGregor — the man he felt he bested of their two-fight rivalry.
“He was simply put in all the fitting locations, you realize what I am saying?” Diaz asks. “And I am not even f—ing hating on that. That is nice. That is cool as hell. It is cool what he is doing and what he did, however, like, you are a spoiled little b—- as a result of they handed you all of that. You did not do s—.
“You got here again and received a [decision in the rematch] … It is not the identical [as the submission win]. If this had been battle, you are lifeless, canine. I received all of your s—. It is all mine. There isn’t any second struggle.”
Regardless of not having a struggle booked for 3 years, Nate Diaz continued to coach in an effort to be prepared for his return. Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC by way of Getty Photographs
ON AUG. three, 2018, the UFC held a information convention in Los Angeles, bringing within the high fighters scheduled to compete within the second half of the 12 months. Sixteen athletes had been scheduled to seem onstage earlier than the general public that day, and each one in all them was current when the information convention started. Each one besides Nate Diaz.
Between 2016 and 2018, Diaz and the UFC had mentioned a number of choices for a comeback struggle. Diaz claims the UFC supplied him then-welterweight champion Tyron Woodley, however on brief discover. White would later say that supply was by no means on the desk. There was discuss, briefly, of matching Diaz with Georges St-Pierre, but it surely fizzled earlier than getting wherever.
“They known as with some petty s—,” Diaz says. “Simply lame. I can not even keep in mind [some of the names]. I would not even discuss to them, man. I used to be like, ‘They’re f—ing with me.'”
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The week of that Aug. three information convention, nevertheless, Diaz had come to phrases on a struggle towards light-weight contender Dustin Poirier in November. The bout was agreed to by either side, however the UFC was nonetheless finalizing the cardboard’s principal occasion, and Diaz hadn’t signed his contract. In keeping with White, the UFC requested Diaz to do this backstage earlier than strolling out to the information convention.
“After we’re going out and spending the type of cash it takes to placed on these press conferences, we wish guys signed,” White tells ESPN. “I would not say he is the one one we’d do this with, that is not true, however there are specific guys the place I need a deal signed earlier than we begin selling it. We’d like assurances that we all know it is going to occur.”
Diaz signed the contract and went onstage, noticeably late. The gang went nuts. A full-throated “Diaz” chant broke out. He was again. It was the most important information of the day.
For about 10 minutes.
On the finish of the information convention, the UFC dimmed the lights and performed a video asserting the 12 months’s megafight: McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov. By the point the lights got here again on, Diaz was gone.
A TMZ digicam caught up with him on the road, as he walked away from the information convention. “F— the UFC. F— all this s—,” Diaz mentioned. “We’ll see if I am even preventing [Poirier]. They higher begin performing proper and begin over-promoting, as an alternative of under-promoting. They introduced me to this press convention late.”
Nate Diaz’s final UFC look got here at UFC 202 towards Conor McGregor. Steve Marcus/Getty Photographs
In the end, the Poirier struggle by no means occurred. Diaz says he by no means truly pulled out, that he has by no means pulled out of a struggle in his profession. Poirier, who ended discuss of the matchup when he publicly revealed a hip harm, mentioned Diaz negotiated himself out of the bout.
“Dustin Poirier [chickened] out is what occurred,” Diaz says. “There was no matter occurring with the UFC — they had been f—ing with me, I used to be f—ing with them — however he jumped out of the struggle as a result of he could not cope with it. He could not sleep at evening.”
Underlying Diaz’s total scenario with the UFC, and no matter causes he had for stepping away, is a fundamental query followers have requested, repeatedly, these final three years: Does he wish to struggle or not?
In keeping with White, that is the one cause behind Diaz’s absence. “He hasn’t needed to struggle.”
That is insane to Diaz, as a result of preventing is all he is aware of. His total life is a struggle camp, a lot in order that he by no means stopped coaching these final three years, though it struck him as odd to take action with no struggle booked. He believes he is the perfect fighter on this planet, to not point out essentially the most marketable.
So when Pettis, a former UFC champion who as soon as graced the quilt of a Wheaties field, completed Stephen Thompson with a highlight-reel knockout in March, Diaz noticed a chance. Had it not been Pettis, maybe it could have been 2019 breakout Jorge Masvidal, whom Diaz seen “did his factor” final month along with his five-second KO of Ben Askren.
Diaz says he’s at all times prepared to struggle, he is simply not prepared to struggle anyone. For the remainder of his profession, he is solely preventing someone.
“I am institutionalized to the struggle recreation,” Diaz says. “I am telling myself to take it straightforward and never prepare as a result of I am not preventing, however then I am like, ‘F— all that.’ I believe the struggle wasn’t with the fighters no extra. The struggle was with the entire group. And I am like, ‘Properly, I am shedding this struggle if I am simply going to sit down right here and die off.’ I needed to get again to what I do.
“This struggle is taking me away from all of the lame-ass fighters that are not doing s—.”
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