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Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Nate Diaz is one of the biggest superstars on the UFC roster right now. And the announcement last week that the native of Stockton, California is returning in November to face off with red-hot Lightweight contender Dustin Poirier caused the internet to go simply insane.
A polarizing figure for as long as he’s been in the UFC, Diaz is actually one of the most tenured fighters on the roster – he made his debut back in 2007, winning Season 5 of The Ultimate Fighter, and has stepped into the Octagon a further 22 times since. Along the way he’s had major wins, poor losses, and some seriously memorable fights.
Here are 5 of Diaz’s most memorable UFC outings.
#1 vs. Kurt Pellegrino – UFC Fight Night 13 – 04/02/2008
It’s quite easy to forget that while Diaz won his season of TUF, it was actually in fluke-like fashion as after a back-and-forth first round, opponent Manny Gamburyan was forced to tap out after re-aggravating an existing shoulder injury. Diaz did win his next two fights impressively – submitting Junior Assuncao and Alvin Robinson – but in early 2008 the jury was still largely out over whether he could cut it at the elite level.
At Fight Night 13, we found out. Diaz was faced with his toughest opponent to date in Kurt Pellegrino – 3-1 in the UFC, a superior wrestler and a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt who was more highly credentialed than the Stockton scrapper. And in the first round, Pellegrino’s experience appeared to be telling, as despite being an even round when it came to grappling, ‘Batman’ was the one doing all of the damage with his ground-based striking.
Diaz came out for the second round looking fired up, though, and immediately looked to impose his striking on the veteran. After being taken down by Pellegrino, Diaz managed to reverse to his feet and appeared to have his opponent hurt with some punches. Pellegrino responded with a slam, only to land directly into a tight triangle choke.
Moments later, Pellegrino was forced to weakly tap out, but it was the nature of the finish that makes this a classic Diaz moment. Rather than pull on Pellegrino’s head as is customary for a fighter looking to tighten a triangle choke, Diaz evidently decided the choke was already tight enough. And so he gave a double bicep-flex to the camera....before flipping Pellegrino off.
After this win, there was no doubt that Diaz was ready for the elite level, and there was no doubt about his wild attitude, too. The finish remains one of the most memorable in UFC history over a decade on.
#2 vs. Donald Cerrone – UFC 141 – 12/30/2011
After an ill-advised move to 170lbs in 2010 ended with a pair of one-sided losses to Dong Hyun Kim and Rory MacDonald, Diaz returned to his more natural 155lbs in late 2011 to face off with Takanori Gomi at UFC 135. The move back to Lightweight worked in dramatic fashion, and Diaz looked better than ever as he hurt the Japanese legend standing before easily submitting him with an armbar.
Just three months later, Diaz was back in action against a red-hot Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone, who had got his UFC career off to a flying start with four straight wins. And in classic Diaz fashion, he instantly made the fight into a very personal affair.
When Cowboy attempted to shake his hand during a pre-fight staredown, Diaz knocked his Stetson off before showing him the double bird. By the time UFC 141 rolled around, it was clear that Diaz was under Cerrone’s skin – and Cowboy showed it by uncharacteristically flipping Diaz off pre-fight.
As it turned out, the fact that Cerrone was so fired up simply played into Diaz’s hands. Cowboy came out far too aggressively and had his bell rung early on by the quicker, more volume-based counterpunching of Diaz. In perhaps the greatest example of the infamous ‘Stockton Slap’ style of boxing, Diaz simply destroyed Cerrone in the first round with a series of crisp combinations that left him with a broken jaw and practically out of the fight.
Cowboy’s tremendous heart allowed him to hang on until the final bell, even dropping Diaz a couple of times with low kicks, but the reality was that the fight was all Nate’s. If the Gomi win had been impressive, this was simply on another level. After a sticky patch in his career that saw him lose three of six fights, this was a massive indication that Diaz was back, and better than ever.
#3 vs. Michael Johnson – UFC on Fox 17 – 12/19/2015
Diaz made it all the way to a title shot at the end of 2012, but after losing in that fight to then-champ Benson Henderson, the years that followed saw Nate largely in the wilderness. Late 2013 saw him defeat Gray Maynard, but a contract dispute then kept him out for a whole year and when he returned, he barely resembled his old self and was thrashed handily by Rafael Dos Anjos.
Another year – and another contract dispute with the UFC – then passed by, and when Diaz was signed to fight Michael Johnson at UFC on Fox 17 in December 2015, it didn’t sound like a good idea.
Johnson was coming off a loss to Beneil Dariush, but that’d been a poor judges’ decision and prior to that he hadn’t tasted defeat since early 2013, winning four straight fights in impressive fashion. And more importantly, he promised he wouldn’t let Diaz draw him into a brawl, and would instead pick him off with his fleet-footed striking style.
The first round saw Diaz – despite being in excellent shape – look as rusty as many observers had expected, and he struggled to find his range as Johnson worked him over with a series of low kicks. But the second round was a different story.
Suddenly, Diaz found his range and began to keep Johnson at the end of his punches, particularly a ramrod jab. Johnson couldn’t fire back and unbelievably, the fight began to resemble exactly what he’d promised it wouldn’t be – classic Diaz fare, with the opponent responding to the myriad of taunts and being drawn into a brawl.
By the third round, it was clear that Diaz was in Johnson’s head, and his confidence skyrocketed, as he simply lit ‘The Menace’ up over and over with crisp combinations, even ending the fight in impudent fashion by going for a kneebar after the buzzer.
The fight went the distance but there was no question of the winner, and Diaz took a clear-cut unanimous decision. And if his performance in the fight wasn’t enough to convince people that the real Nate Diaz was back, a fired-up, sweary promo calling out Conor McGregor certainly did the trick. It was a fine precursor of the mayhem that was to follow in 2016.
#4 vs. Conor McGregor – UFC 196 – 03/05/2016
This was the fight that turned Diaz from a popular action fighter who tended to alternate wins and losses into the global superstar that he is today – and incredibly, it wasn’t even supposed to happen! For those who’ve forgotten or don’t know, the original main event of UFC 196 was planned to be Conor McGregor challenging Rafael dos Anjos for the UFC Lightweight title, but when ‘RDA’ broke his foot, the UFC found a willing replacement in Diaz – albeit with the fight taking place at 170lbs.
The pre-fight video package summed the whole thing up, with a voice-over from DMX stating that “it’s the fight that makes no sense, and yet makes all the sense in the world”. Coming in, McGregor was the hot favorite, and for good reason – he was coming off the biggest win of his career, a 13-second knockout of Jose Aldo, and he’d never come close to being beaten in the UFC.
But Diaz was the biggest man he’d fought by far, and more to the point, he was bringing in a large reach advantage and a proven, rock-solid chin that’d seen him TKO’d just once in his career. And for once, it appeared that McGregor was beaten in the territory of mind games, too – Diaz simply didn’t care for all the trash talk at all, and that seemed to get under the Irishman’s skin.
Unsurprisingly, McGregor came out swinging for the fences, seemingly confident that despite his chin, Diaz would simply wilt under his massive punching power. But despite busting the veteran’s right eye up and largely turning his face into a bloody mess, McGregor couldn’t find the killer blow. By the end of the first round, the Irishman was sucking wind, while Diaz seemed eerily calm.
Early on in the second round, it became clear that it wasn’t Diaz who was in trouble, it was McGregor. Not only were his punches unable to knock Diaz out, but they were swiftly losing their pop, and now Diaz was firing back and taunting him for good measure. As the crowd began to sound shocked, Diaz grew in confidence, stunning ‘The Notorious One’ with more punches, and eventually, hurt and tired, McGregor shot in for a takedown.
The takedown put Diaz on his back, but only for a moment. The jiu-jitsu black belt wasted no time in sweeping McGregor, mounting him, and seconds later the Irishman gave his back. Diaz sunk a choke in, and one of the wildest fights in UFC history was over.
Post-fight, it was more classic Diaz fare. Refusing to accept the result as an upset win, Nate simply blurted out “I’m not surprised, mother*ckers.” It was a soundbite destined to be repeated over and over and over. Not only had Diaz beaten the biggest superstar in the history of the UFC, but when it emerged that the show had drawn a record 1.317 million pay-per-view buys, he’d also proven his own worth as a bankable mega-star.
#5 vs. Conor McGregor – UFC 202 – 08/20/2016
When word of the massive buyrate for UFC 196 emerged, it became pretty clear that a rematch between Diaz and McGregor was probably a must-book fight for the UFC, even if a lot of hardcore fans felt McGregor should’ve been forced to defend his UFC Featherweight title first. The promotion initially attempted to book the fight for the landmark UFC 200 show, but a dispute between the UFC and McGregor put paid to that, and the fight was instead re-booked for UFC 202.
If interest in the fight had been surprisingly low in the weeks leading up to the event, things changed swiftly when a pre-fight press conference went completely turbo. Diaz attempted to walk out, only to taunt McGregor first verbally, and then by throwing a bottle at him. Conor responded by launching cans of Monster energy drink at Diaz and his crew, and in a fashion that only McGregor and Diaz could’ve managed, all hell broke loose and suddenly the hype for the fight was off the charts again.
And while it probably didn’t deserve to be crowned the greatest UFC fight ever – as it was in an official UFC poll in early 2018 – the rematch turned into a real war of attrition that saw both fighters leave absolutely everything in the Octagon. It was the stone-cold classic that everyone had hoped it would be, with McGregor making the right adjustments to avoid losing in the same fashion as he had in the initial meeting, and Diaz simply being Diaz – always a tough fight for someone of McGregor’s fighting style.
The first and second rounds went firmly to McGregor, as he took a leaf from the book of the last man to beat Diaz – Dos Anjos – and worked him over with leg kicks that allowed him to set up his big power punches. Diaz went down three times in those two rounds, but by the end of the second he’d somehow willed himself back into the fight, landing those crisp combinations again and by the beginning of the third round, it appeared that the momentum had shifted.
Diaz took over the fight in the third, battering McGregor with combinations as the Irishman barely offered any offense in return. In the waning seconds, it appeared that the ‘Notorious One’ was on the ropes, but he managed to survive the round and then came roaring back in the fourth, apparently having found a second wind. The leg kicks and crisper punches returned and by the end of the round, it was Diaz – now a bloody mess – on the defensive.
The fifth round was a pure gutter-war, both men swinging for the fences – and landing, too – and Diaz really pushing hard for the takedown, safe in the knowledge that he could dominate McGregor on the ground again. Showing a somewhat underrated wrestling game, though, Conor was able to defend the takedown until the final moments of the fight – which ended with Diaz working inside the Irishman’s guard.
Whichever way the decision went, it was always going to be somewhat controversial due to the close nature of the fight – but few people argued when McGregor was awarded the win, two judges going 48-47 for him with the third going with a 47-47 draw. Diaz for his part looked furious, but then he’d always looked furious whenever he’d lost a decision in the past.
In the end, the fight not only surpassed all the hype going in, but it broke the UFC’s pay-per-view buyrate record too – drawing a monstrous 1.6 million buys and cementing both men as massive stars. And despite it marking a loss on Diaz’s record, it remains undoubtedly his most memorable UFC fight – until the potential trilogy with McGregor is completed, of course.
