Here’s all you need to know about the man who’s been tasked with welcoming Conor McGregor to the UFC’s welterweight division.
Age: 30, 12 years of professional fighting.
Height: 6 feet, giving him three inches on Conor McGregor.
Reach: 76 inches, meaning this will be first time the Notorious doesn’t have a reach advantage over his opponent in the UFC. McGregor’s reach is 74in. Diaz’s gives up two inches in the leg reach department with 38 in.
Record: 18-10, 13-8 UFC. Four of his wins came by way of knockout, 11 were submission victories while only three went the distance. He’s had one knockout loss, just the solitary submission defeat, and has seen eight judges’ decisions go against him.
He made his professional debut on 4 October 2004, submitting Alejandro Garcia in the third round at the WEC 12: Halloween Fury 3 event.
Experienced at 170 lb: Diaz has fought four times at welterweight in the UFC, scoring wins over Rory Markim and Marcus Davis. He dropped down to lightweight after suffering back-to-back losses to Dong Hyun Kim and Rory MacDonald respectively.
Brother of Nick: Nate cites his brother as one of his heroes and claims he was the one who got him interested in fighting. Nate followed Nick’s lead and began training jiu-jitsu, boxing and MMA at a young age. The pair have quite the sibling bond and have vowed never to fight each other inside a cage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSIUUdFEoBg
Gym: Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, Pleasant Hill, California.
Notable training partners: Former Strikeforce and WEC welterweight champion Nick Diaz, former Strikeforce middleweight champion Jake Shields, UFC lightweight Yancy Medeiros.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHAaasOP7s
Achievements : Black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Cesar Gracie, BA in Badassery from the streets.
Records: The Ultimate Fighter 5 lightweight winner.
Biggest win: Although he holds impressive wins over Michael Johnson, Takanori Gomi, Jim Miller and Gray Maynard, his biggest win was arguably against Donald Cerrone at UFC 141.
Cerrone had been riding a five-fight win streak at the time, but Diaz put an end to that by viciously beating up Cowboy on the way to a unanimous decision victory. Diaz pummeled Cerrone’s face with his high-volume striking style and completely dominated his opponent.
Last defeat: Rafael dos Anjos at UFC on Fox 13, 13 December 2014. RDA won a lopsided decision (30-26, 30-26, 30-27) by brutalising Diaz with leg kicks before unloading with barrages of punches as Diaz’s mobility slowed down. It marked the first time Diaz stepped foot inside the Octagon for over a year and he was 5.5 lb over the 155 lb limit and was subsequently fined 20 percent of his purse.
Other notable losses include a TKO loss to Josh Thomson as well as decision losses to Benson Henderson, Rory MacDonald, Dong Hyun Kim and Clay Guida.
The Stockton Slap: One of the Diaz brothers trademark moves, named after their hometown. Although a clean punch could be landed from this position, there are few things more humiliating than getting slapped in the face during an MMA contest while your opponent continuously talks smack about you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvGzEc6_73Y
Fitness freak: Outside of MMA, he’s been known to compete in the odd triathlon alongside his brother. He also adheres to a strict diet where he avoids eating dairy and “land meat”, which is essentially a vegan diet with the addition of fish.
Flipping birds before McGregor: Four years before McGregor gave his infamous finger to Dennis Siver inside the Octagon, Diaz did the exact same thing to Cowboy.
Criminally underpaid: Diaz was on just $20k/$20k for his fight against Michael Johnson. That means he earned $20,000 for showing and $20,000 for winning, which is quite low considering he was a 20-fight UFC veteran at the time. Luckily, both fighters pocketed an extra 50 large by winning the Fight of the Night accolade.
Diaz has gone on record to complain about his contract before.
“My contract is all fucked up. I want to be paid like these other fighters. I’m over here getting chump change. At this point, they’re paying all my partners and other people I train with are getting real money, and it’s too embarrassing for me to even fight again for the money they’re paying me.”
However, he was offered a contract extension with the McGregor fight adding two extra bouts to his contract, which we hope means he’s also getting a decent chunk of change on top of that.
Hates the Reebok deal: Not exactly a company man like McGregor.
Here's for your Bitchass uniforms.. http://t.co/Fqh2bAEZKC pic.twitter.com/2rYYsOI84l
— Nathan Diaz (@NateDiaz209) December 3, 2014
Diaz was even fined for violating the UFC’s outfitting policy at the UFC Orlando weigh-ins. Diaz wore jeans at the event instead of his Reebok attire.
Those were #reebokjeans u should've just kept the whole check I don't need that baby ass shit anyway ..🔫 #1000✌🏼️
— Nathan Diaz (@NateDiaz209) January 10, 2016
Interviews are always entertaining: Expletive-filled, occasionally comprehensible and passionate. Give this guy a mic and prepare to be enthralled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RwPu2u4DCQ
Exciting style: Tied with Anderson Silva for the second most Post-fight Bonus Awards with 12, fought in six Fights of the Night, earned five Submissions of the Night and one Knockout of the Night.
His walkout song: Perfect for a fight against McGregor. We’ll have Biggie v Tupac before McGregor v Diaz at UFC 196.
#20.9: While trying to incorporate Stockton’s area code (209) into this piece, it became apparent that 0.9 of a thing is difficult to conjure up. The only way around it is to give you most of a fact and stopping one word short of a complete sentence.
So without further adieu, Diaz’s favourite colour is…
