After Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor’s ridiculous bottle throwing melee at their UFC 202 press conference, the MGM Grand came down hard on both camps, effectively banning both fighter’s entourages from any of the remaining events leading up to the fight. One stipulation that especially rankled Team Diaz was the fact that Nate’s older brother and fellow MMA fighter Nick was part of the ban, and wouldn’t be allowed to corner Nick in the UFC 202 main event. Well, it turns out there’s a way around that but it’ll cost a small fortune.
According to Adam Hill of the Las Vegas Review Journal, Nick can corner Nate, but it’ll require a $25,000 down payment to the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Ouch.
NAC has paperwork in the arena for Nick Diaz to sign should he want to be allowed to corner Nate tonight. Would also need 25K down payment
— Adam Hill (@AdamHillLVRJ) August 21, 2016
The fee isn’t actually a fee simply to corner his brother, it’s actually a part of the remaining $75,000 on the $100,000 he was fined after his failed drug test last year after his loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 183. It was Diaz’s third time testing positive for marijuana in the state of Nevada and he was initially handed a five-year ban and a $165,000 fine before his suspension was reduced to 18 months and the fine to $100,000.
Nick may change his decision eventually but as of Saturday afternoon the Diaz camp relayed to MMAFighting.com that he would not be cornering Nate in the UFC 202 main event. Whether that was due to the $25,000 was unclear.
