Nate Diaz has added another out-of-competition brawl to his ever-growing fight résumé.
In recent weeks, it was announced that Diaz and current UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones were set to coach opposite one another on the Russian reality fight show “ALF Global.” The series has often been equated to “The Ultimate Fighter” and featured former UFC champions Petr Yan and Aljamain Sterling as past coaches. However, Diaz’s longtime teammate and fellow UFC veteran, Jake Shields, revealed Wednesday that Diaz and their crew have already left the show after a brawl broke out during fighter introductions.
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Shields shared footage of the incident on his YouTube channel.
Diaz and Jones were filming the show in Thailand, doing team introductions, when Jones’ fighter — 19-17 welterweight veteran Zalimkhan Yusupov — started instigating with Diaz. Soon after, a member of Diaz’s team attacked Yusupov, which escalated the whole situation.
This wasn’t Yusupov’s first incident on “ALF Global,” as he infamously choked out former UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling on the show’s previous season.
According to Shields, Yusupov was allowed back into the room rather than fully removed from the show, which led to Shields’ own involvement.
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“Right when I started to go off on him, I got just blitzed from the side,” Shields said. “Not where the fighters were — a couple of guys just started blitzing me, which to me seemed like they were crew working there, not fighters, because the fighters were in the chairs.
“To me, it was very clear that it was the staff and the workers. That was one of those moments where, like, I better diffuse the situation.”
Shields added that the “ALF Global” production team did their best to entice Diaz and his team to remain in Thailand and continue working on the season, however they opted to fly back home to California.
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“Why are we going to go back and film a show [where this is happening]? It’s one thing to be fighting the fighters — that’s why I went out there with Nate, I thought it was a possibility some of these fighters will try to test him — but when you have potentially the crew hitting you too, it’s like, ‘No, f*** that,’” Shields said.
Diaz, 40, hasn’t competed since his boxing rematch against Jorge Masvidal in July 2024. He won the match via majority decision.
