Fans will no doubt be overjoyed at the news that Nick Diaz will be returning to combat sports at least one more time in 2022, at least according to his long-time coach and mentor Cesar Gracie. Both Diaz brothers have been among the most popular MMA fighters of all time and have been competing at the highest levels of the sport for what feels like forever. They both started incredibly young, with Nate Diaz taking bare-knuckle MMA fights as young as 17 and Nick having made his professional debut at the age of 18, and they have both continued fighting much later than many other fighters would.
Nick Diaz has been notably absent from MMA competition in recent years however, as he decided to go on a long hiatus from the sport after his 2015 fight with Anderson Silva that ended in a no contest after both fighters failed drug tests. He’s a fighter born and bred though, and Diaz decided to make his return to the sport in 2021. He completed a test weight-cut first in order to make sure that he was ready to compete and this alone was enough to set fans into a frenzy as they guessed potential opponents for his return.
His eventual comeback was even more of a perfect matchup than fans could have expected, as he faced off against Robbie Lawler at UFC 266 in a rematch of a fight that took place over seventeen years earlier at UFC 47. He ended up losing via TKO in the third round of their fight as Lawler evened the score between the two, so naturally many assumed that he might not be returning again. Nick Diaz stayed quiet for the rest of 2021 and the start of 2022 but now it seems he is not done with fighting just yet.
In the past Nick Diaz has publicly stated that he’s open to fighting outside of the UFC and potentially even taking boxing matches in the future, so it remains to be seen where the MMA legend will actually be fighting if he does return in 2022. It’s not as if he’d be ill-prepared for a boxing debut either as both Diaz brothers are well-known for their top-tier boxing skills and he has been seen training with some of the best boxers on the planet like Tyson Fury.
Cesar Gracie shared the news that Nick Diaz will be fighting once again in 2022 in a post to his official Instagram account:
