There were a lot of famous people at UFC 205 – Madonna, Odell Beckham Jr., Nick Jonas, Gordon Ramsay, and Zac Efron all turned up cageside during the event. But did the UFC end up prioritizing the stars of the music and movie industry over their own athletes? According to Nate Diaz, he and his brother Nick couldn’t get tickets to the event at Madison Square Garden despite being a part of some of the biggest PPVs in the company’s history.
“The UFC, they didn’t even want to give me tickets to this fight,” Nate told ESPN. “I think they just wanted to put this picture of him holding the belts, like the greatest thing that ever happened, and they wanted to kinda keep me out of the mix and hide me out on the whole thing. It might have been in his contract, don’t let Nate Diaz in here!”
“Like I was saying, I was up in the stands sitting in the club box. After the fight everyone turned around and looked at me, and it’s not my call. These guys are hiding me out here. I think they gave Nick Jonas my seat. … I’ll leave him alone, I don’t even wanna fight the guy. Just let me get a seat. So we got into the fight through some other people we know. Me and my brother [Nick], they didn’t wanna let any one of us in.”
That’s a little ridiculous, but who knows how much notice the Diaz brothers may have given the UFC. They seem disorganized enough to just show up on fight night expecting $1500 seats to the hottest event in town. Still, Nate’s two fights with Conor McGregor both broke the record for most PPVs sold in UFC history, and Nick’s fight with Georges St. Pierre pulled nearly a million buys. So you’d think some sort of accommodation could be made.
As far as a third fight with Conor McGregor, Nate seems interested but unwilling to put in much effort to force it to happen.
“People, they question me like ‘Hey when are you gonna fight number three, do you want number three?’ and I’m like of course, if I do anything that’s what I wanted was the third fight,” Nate said. “I’m not begging for no fight. It’s all good with me. I don’t need to fight anybody. I don’t even need to do this interview.”
And that’s probably why the UFC seems so uninterested in featuring Nate. After making his money on the first two McGregor fights, he’s barely interested in fighting at all. Why include Nate in the picture when he’s completely unwilling to play ball in any meaningful way?