Diaz: They better hope I don’t beat McGregor

Nate Diaz was long, long a favorite of the hardcore fanbase, an anti-hero.

I’m not a very likable looking person, he said to Dan Wetzel for Yahoo Sports. If you see a picture of me at a fight, I’m never f***ing happy. That’s why I try not to involve my family. That’s why I don’t have my mom or my sister or my girlfriend at the fight. I don’t want to embarrass nobody.

You want to tell your mom this is my favorite guy here? And you look on TV and I’m going, ‘F*** you motherf***er.’ … People are like, ‘What is this guy, retarded?’ I’m not retarded.”

I’m just not listening to you unless you understand what I’m doing.

Things changed when Diaz stepped in to fight UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor, at welterweight. Conor McGregor is one of the best trash talkers in combat sports history, but Diaz out trash talked him – comically characterizing the Irishman’s movement training before the fight as “touch butt in the park,” and immediately after the fight grabbing the mic and indelibly uttering “I’m not surprised motherf***ers.” 

And of course Diaz won.

Now Diaz is in a battle with the UFC over money. It has a history.

Diaz signed an 8-fight contract in 2012, prior to a presumably lucrative title shot at Benson Henderson. His next fight, vs. Josh Thompson, he lost, and earned a disclosed salary of just $15,000. While this was absolutely not his entire income from the fight, on paper, it is not a lot of paper.

His brother Nick has incurred fines calculated as a percentage of the contracted money, for consuming the demon week marijuana. Thus it would be wise for the brothers to keep their declared salaries to a minimum. Still, 15/15 is not a lot to show.

In keeping with UFC contracts that escalate only on a win, his next fight, a win over Gray Maynard, Diaz made a disclosed salary of $30,000 (15/15). Then the UFC signed his teammate Gil Melendez after a bidding war with Bellator. Gil’s contract guaranteed 75% of his fights would be on PPV, and with a threshhold lower than any fighter in league history. And El Nino’s show money his very first fight was $175,000. Melendez won only one of his four fights since; it was a decision over Diego Sanchez.

Apparently learning what contract his teammate had signed, Diaz asked to be released, and was pulled from the rankings at one point for inactivity.

Diaz’s next fight, the show money escalated from 15k to 20k. But he lost to Rafael Dos Anjos, and was fined $4,000 for missing weight, so made $16,000, disclosed. His next fight was a Fight of the Night win over Michael Johnson. Since he lost vs. RDA, he stayed at 20/20 (plus 50k for the fight of the night).

And then he fought Conor McGregor on 11 days notice. UFC president Dana White reported that Diaz made millions.

Diaz wants millions more. And ahead of a rematch with McGregor at UFC 202 on August 20, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada, he appears to be getting them.

They better hope I don’t win this fight, Diaz said of the UFC. Because it’s going to be a lot of trouble for everybody, in terms of the business. This one coming up, they better hope I don’t win this one because the game is going to change.

It already has.

People will say, ‘I’ll fight anybody, I love to fight. You love to fight? F*** that. People say that. And, yeah, I said that. And I woke up. It takes a lot of fighting to wake up. ‘I’ll fight anybody for free? I’ll fight anybody?’ That’s what they want. That’s what pads their bottom line. Then I realized, ‘F*** you motherf***ers, you’re playing me.’

Diaz recalled a moment during the negotiation to fight McGregor.

I’m having these conversations in my head,” related Diaz. “I’m out there running and I’m just thinking, if you put Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta in my position and said, ‘Make this weight next week and do everything I’m doing, and pay them their whole company’s worth, $4.2 billion, they couldn’t do it.’ They couldn’t. It doesn’t matter how much money there is.

I said, ‘S*** is going change, I’m fighting at 165 now. You call me and say there’s a fight in 12 days and you want me to lose 30 f***ing pounds? No. I’ll lose 20 pounds and we could fight. Yesterday I would have fought at 155 but your company f***ed up, since you are best friends, the company and Conor McGregor, you want me to lose all those pounds for you guys. No, I’ll lose 20.’

The fight ended up at 170, and was the second biggest fight in company history, after UFC 200.

I f***ed up everyone’s plan by winning that fight,” said Diaz.

I was like, ‘Ha, ha, you motherf***ers, call me for the next one, you better come with something good. I don’t give a f***. You didn’t give me enough money but I come from a place with no money and you give me too much money. I don’t give a f*** about making more. I am doing better than I was ever supposed to do.

You have to say something. I’ve already had too many years of not saying s***, and then I got people coming in left and right out of other organizations getting paid out. Are you kidding me? There were probably times I could have done that before but I wasn’t up to par on the knowledge.

The UFC owes much of it’s success to the aggression and ambition of Dana White, who may not have made it out of high school. Diaz dropped out of school in 10th grade. Now, after years of being willing to fight anyone at any weight, Diaz is fighting with the company for every dollar. It’s an unbelievable story – two high school dropouts become two of the most important people in a four billion dollar company. Nate Diaz, forever a hero to the hardcore fanbase, may be exactly the guy to lead the guys who bleed, in how the pie is divided.