Nate Diaz has a bit of a reputation for being all gangster, boosted up by recent skirmishes between his crew and both Conor McGregor and previous opponent Michael Johnson. But according to CM Punk, there’s a softer side to the younger Diaz brother and Punk got to see it at UFC 200.
“UFC 200, I was doing an autograph signing and the guy I was signing the autograph for started like pointing behind me,” Punk told Fox Sports. “I heard someone like yelling my name and I turned around, and I was on a riser and Nate Diaz was on the ground and he was like, ‘Hey, man. Come here!’ I was like ‘what’s up?’ and he was the nicest f**king guy.”
“I don’t know if he’ll get mad and this will ruin the image of Nate Diaz, but he was like, ‘Hey, man. I talked some s**t before and I don’t know you and I’m sorry,’ and he’s like, ‘Gilbert (Melendez) and Ronda (Rousey) said that you’re a cool dude and they love you,’ and I started looking around for the cameras. I was like ‘alright.’ I thought that was super, super cool of him. Super nice guy.”
Nate was one of many UFC fighters that reacted negatively to CM Punk’s signing with the UFC, declaring it was “horrible for the sport.”
“I don’t dig it,” Diaz said back in 2014. “He has got no fights. I know he’s a big draw. I looked him up. Everyone’s going to buy tickets. It’s going to be great for the venue and the UFC, but at the same time, it downgrades all the fighters. He’s an amateur. You’re going to put an amateur in there with pros? That makes us all amateurs, so I think it’s ridiculous. As far as I’m concerned, f**k him, f**k the whole situation.”
Keep in mind this was the old Nate that used to only make $40,000 a fight, way below what CM Punk is probably getting paid for his potentially disastrous foray into real fighting. Now that Nate is clearing a million dollars per fight, there’s probably a lot less bitterness when it comes to other guys with way less experience making a lot of money.
