Nate Diaz doesn’t look at his win over Conor McGregor as his best fight.
In 2016, Diaz and McGregor engaged in a rivalry that still lingers over the sport of MMA today. At the time, McGregor was the featherweight champion, looking to become the first simultaneous two-division champion in UFC history, but when lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos pulled out of their scheduled fight, Diaz stepped in on nine days’ notice, and shocked the world, submitting McGregor in the second round.
That victory catapulted Diaz to overnight stardom and led to a rematch five months later that broke UFC pay-per-view records (at the time). But for Diaz, it’s not necessarily his biggest or his best fight.
“When we were talking about, ‘What was your best fight?’ … I’m always like, there’s different [ones],” Diaz said on Jake Shields’ YouTube channel. “Because everyone expects, when they ask me that, they expect me to go, ‘Conor McGregor.’ I’m like, bro, settle down. Because Conor McGregor was a huge fight, humongous in my career, but there’s different fights — it’s like a timeline.
“That was the biggest shit when I fought Cowboy [Donald Cerrone]. That was fighting a guy that I thought, ‘You guys are all looking at this bitch-ass motherf*cker? Nah.’ Because he’s the new thing coming from the WEC shit. So I beat his ass and was like, what’s up? And to me, that felt like a big piece of my timeline. …
“And I fought Takanori Gomi, and Gomi was the GOAT when I was f*cking kicking off. It was like, Gomi and B.J. Penn. And then B.J. fought him, and that was the dopest shit you could have done. That’s what I tried to do, what he did — Rumble on the Rock. ‘Uh uh, I can’t do the UFC right now. I want something bigger than that. Something better than that.’”
Diaz fought Gomi and Cerrone in back-to-back fights in 2011, after making his return to the lightweight division. And while Gomi was the easier fight — submitting him in the first round — that matchup stands out to Stockton’s finest because of the pressure he felt heading into it.
“It’s like there’s no ‘biggest fight,’ there’s just bigger ones,” Diaz said. “And biggest in what way? For y’all? Conor, then. That’s my answer [laughs].
“But for me, though, beating Gomi, that was the scariest fight of my life,” Diaz continued. “And that’s why it happened so perfect for me. He’s older and not peaking, but I watched him; I based a lot of my fighting off of him. I was like, ‘Bro, shit, you’re the guy, and now I’m fighting you? And Nick f*cked you [up] so you’re really mad at me? I’m having a hard time sleeping tonight.’ You might just get f*cked up because of that [laughs].”
Diaz has not had any fights in some time. He left the UFC in 2022 to pursue his interests in boxing, where he’s competed twice, a unanimous decision loss to Jake Paul in 2023, and then a majority decision win over Jorge Masvidal in 2024. Since then, Diaz has been waiting for his opportunity to return, and he’s content to remain out of action until the next step in the timeline shows up.
“I’m ready to fight when there’s someone worth fighting,” Diaz said.
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SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE
Fighter reaction to the insane Contender Series war.
I mean, the MMA translator probably should know how to convey “significant strikes” to a fighter.
I encourage everyone to check out the full video from the Nate Diaz stuff. Seeing Nate and Gilbert Melendez and Jake Shields chop it up was nice. Nate seems so at ease and just having fun with his friends, instead of having to deal with people in a fight scenario. Some decent stories and chill vibe.
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