Nate Diaz has just revealed that he is planning to sail off into the sunset after having just one final retirement fight, hopefully against Dustin Poirier. Considering that Diaz is 36 and has been competing in professional MMA since 2004, with at least one bare knuckle MMA fight prior to that in 2002, it makes sense that he would be ready to call it a day on his combat sports career. He has 33 professional fights on his record and has fought some of the greatest Lightweight and Welterweight fighters in the history of the sport during the course of his time at the top.
Diaz has fought the likes of Conor McGregor, Anthony Pettis, Donald Cerrone, and even challenged Benson Henderson for the UFC Lightweight title at one point. Since the early days of his career when he won the Ultimate Fighter 5, Diaz has been a fan-favorite for his personality and incredibly entertaining trash talk. He hasn’t been all mouth at all though, and he’s actually built his career off solid boxing and phenomenal Jiu-Jitsu skills that have earned him a third degree black belt over the years.
Nate Diaz revealed that he wants one just one final fight with Dustin Poirier before his retirement from professional MMA in an interview with TMZ Sports. They congratulated him for being mentioned on Eminem’s latest song before the conversation naturally turned towards his combat sports career and what he has planned for the future:
“I would like to fight Dustin Poirier, like now. Like, I’ve been trying to.”
He also explained that there’s nothing standing in the way of him taking the fight and the hold up must be somewhere else in the chain. This should come as no surprise either as MMA manager Ali Abdelaziz previously confirmed that it was the UFC themselves who were preventing the fight from coming to fruition, allegedly because they want Diaz to commit to a one fight extension to his current contract instead of finishing it against Poirier:
“If there’s any mix-up it’s him, and them, and the game. I want the fight now. What’s up Dana White? Let’s get this retirement fight cracking so I can get out of this fight game. I’m done with it.”
