Brendan Schaub and Nate Diaz have had a bit of beef with one another for quite some time now, but Schaub has just challenged his Diaz to a grappling match to settle the score. It’s not entirely unusual to see two MMA fighters meet on the mats, but it isn’t often that those occasions are anything more than friendly matchups. Usually when fighters have a score to settle with one another, their first port of call is to step into the cage with another under the ruleset that they’re most familiar with. There’s some extenuating circumstances that made that virtually impossible for these two men though.
Schaub has been retired from MMA for almost a decade and Diaz hasn’t had an MMA fight since 2022, when he parted ways with the UFC and became a free agent. Instead of continuing his MMA career elsewhere, Diaz has decided to focus on a transition to boxing instead. He lost his debut match against Jake Paul at the end of 2023, but he went for a change of pace in his next match by facing off with a fellow MMA fighter. He won a decision against old rival Jorge Masvidal, bringing his boxing record to 1-1 with both matches going the distance.
Although Nate Diaz hasn’t competed in a grappling match in years, Brendan Schaub actually has far less experience in the sport. Diaz grew up training Jiu-Jitsu as a child and he has competed very frequently during the earlier part of his career at the lower belt levels. Diaz even famously faced Ryan Hall in the gi, whereas Schaub’s experience with elite competitors is pretty limited. His only high-profile Jiu-Jitsu match was back in 2013 at Metamoris 2, where he lost a decision to Roberto ‘Cyborg’ Abreu. Although Schaub hasn’t been active in combat sports for quite some time, he still trains and was even promoted to black belt in BJJ in 2021.
Brendan Schaub challenged Nate Diaz to a grappling match in a recent post to his official Twitter account:
