Nearly three years after his last UFC fight, Nate Diaz is returning to the UFC with no interest in picking up where he left off. During an ESPN interview with Ariel Helwani, Diaz said despite losing his bloody sequel to Conor McGregor via decision, he doesn’t care about a rematch with the former lightweight and featherweight champion.
“I’m interested in winners,” Diaz said. “He lost his last fight, and I won my last fight. You think I’m trying to fight someone who just got his a– beat all over the place? I’m a black belt in jiu-jitsu. That s— wouldn’t happen to me.”
Diaz also went on to claim that he slapped current lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov at the World Series of Fighting in 2015 and that he’d relish the opportunity to fight him again.
“I’ll fight Khabib,” Diaz said. “Then Khabib is playing like I have to win something to get to him. I’m like, ‘What are you talking about, dude? You have to win to get to me. I slapped you.’”
For now, Diaz will focus his attention on a return to the welterweight division with a showdown against Anthony Pettis at UFC 241 on August 17. Diaz was on the books to return at UFC 230 last year against Dustin Poirier before his opponent pulled out a month before their fight with an injury. Poirier, of course, went on to wreck Max Holloway en route to winning the interim lightweight title at UFC 236. Before losing to McGregor in their rematch, Diaz submitted the Irishman in the second round of their UFC 196 tilt.
