Jake Shields recently appears on an episode of the JAXXON podcast and he revealed that his long-time friend and training partner, Nick Diaz, didn’t actually train ahead of his UFC comeback. The news comes just ahead of Diaz’s next fight, one he will be taking literally the day after his 41st birthday. Diaz is scheduled to compete against Vicente Luque at UFC on ABC 7 on August 3rd, 2024 and this would be a tough fight for anyone, never mind someone coming off a 3-year absence from the sport. That was Diaz’s rematch against Robbie Lawler, a TKO loss and his first MMA fight in over 6 years.
That unsuccessful comeback extended the winless streak that Nick Diaz is currently on to four fights but Jake Shields explained that there was more behind it than that:
“He didn’t train at all for his Lawler fight. That fight shouldn’t have happened in my opinion. I’m not gonna get into too many details but I wasn’t too happy. I think he was kind of pressured into that so people could make money.”
It’s no surprise that Diaz wasn’t able to beat an elite competitor like Lawler if he hadn’t trained during the build-up to the fight. Looking at his performance with that in mind, Shields thinks it’s a good sign for his next fight against Vicente Luque:
“The fact that he fought Robbie Lawler with zero training in five years, I was freaked out watching that. I thought he was gonna get embarrassed and he put on a fricken war. He lost, but he went just two rounds – for a second, I thought he might come back and win – with no training. So, I think it shows he still has the heart, and now he’s training. I can’t say how hard, I know he’s training now.”
The full interview with Jake Shields where he discusses Nick Diaz making his comeback to the UFC against Robbie Lawler was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of the JAXXON Podcast: