VENICE, Calif. – For Nate Diaz, stepping back in the cage this week, he hopes, will make him feel normal.
Diaz hasn’t been in an MMA fight in nearly four years. His UFC swan song was a bonus-winning submission of TOny Ferguson in the UFC 279 main event in September 2022. And while he boxed Jake Paul (a loss) and Jorge Masvidal (a win) in 2023 and 2024, respectively, he’s been missing a certain fire that MMA brings.
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“When I’m not fighting, I feel like I’m doing something wrong,” Diaz told MMA Junkie and other media members Wednesday. “It’s been my whole life. … I’ve been fighting since I’m 16, 15 years old, pretty much, as far as amateurs and all that sh*t. I’ve been fighting more in my life than I haven’t been. When I’m not fighting, it doesn’t feel like I’m doing what I should be doing. It don’t feel right. I feel like it’s time to fight. It’s time to compete. Time to do a seminar.”
Diaz (21-13) might hope his return to MMA Saturday goes off more like a seminar. That would be an easier potential result against the BKFC “King of Violence,” fellow ex-UFC fighter Mike Perry (14-8). They fight in the welterweight co-feature of the potentially monumental MVP MMA debut event.
That fight takes place at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif., and will be on one of the largest global platforms: Netflix. As a bonus, it’s the co-main event to a highly discussed fight between women’s MMA pioneers ROnda Rousey and Gina Carano, so Diaz knows he might be in the right place at the right time.
He also would concur he’s owed such a platform – or at least he won’t fight on one less than it.
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“It’s really cool that there’s new sh*t, especially Netflix coming in – the biggest and the best of all the outlets,” Diaz said. “I wasn’t going to do anything lower than this, or what I’ve been at.”
As far as his opponent is concerned, though, Diaz said there hasn’t been much buildup of controversial trash talk with him and Perry. Diaz insisted he wasn’t going to manufacture a grudge with his opponent.
It apparently never came to fruition from the other side, either. Instead, Diaz envisions an old-fashioned and bloody fistfight being a better result than Internet chatter.
“He could have always made it (a beef), but he never did. I’m not going to favor no beef. I don’t have no problem with (Perry) and I never did,” Diaz said. “I’ve been fighting for a lot of years. People see my last couple fights with some beef and they expect that out of me, but I’m an athlete and world class and I would like to try to keep it that way. If anybody wants a problem, they can have them. But I ain’t looking for problems. That’s up to them.”
Check out Diaz’s full interview above.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Nate Diaz: Fighting Mike Perry on Netflix a chance to feel right again
