'Big' John McCarthy and Josh Thomson have criticized the UFC, as they feel the organization has meted out unfair treatment to Nate Diaz.
In the latest edition of the Weighing In podcast, former MMA referee McCarthy and former UFC lightweight Thomson discussed Diaz's upcoming welterweight bout against undefeated grappling phenom Khamzat Chimaev.
The bout with Chimaev is the final fight of Diaz's current UFC contract. The consensus is that the UFC has intentionally matched up Diaz against Chimaev, who's purportedly a bad stylistic matchup for him. It's believed that this is because the UFC wants to dent the outgoing Diaz's brand value, besides also having Diaz's star power rub off on rising UFC star Chimaev.
McCarthy and Thomson reiterated the aforementioned hypothesis. They suggested that the UFC ought to have booked Diaz against a relatively easier opponent in his final fight with the organization. McCarthy stated:
"I don't like the matchup. I'm being honest, I don't like it, based upon -- I know what they're doing, and it's slimy. It's slimy. And I hate, you know, they're not the only ones that do it. It's promotions and promoters; they do that."
Josh Thomson indicated that Nate Diaz is one of the UFC's biggest stars, adding that Diaz has fetched the promotion significant revenues in the past. Thomson and McCarthy reiterated that the Diaz-Chimaev matchup is unfair and that fighters like Diaz deserve a better farewell from the UFC. Thomson stated:
"Nate Diaz has made them [UFC], I would say, probably in the estimation of about a billion dollars. Just Nate Diaz." Additionally, in response to McCarthy noting that Diaz probably garnered the UFC somewhere between 500 million to a billion dollars, Thomson said, "That's insane, John. Absolutely f**king insane." 'The Punk' added, "I would like to see guys like him get a proper send-off."
Watch McCarthy and Thomson discuss the topic at 5:30 in the video below:
Nate Diaz's coach feels the UFC wants him to lose on his way out of the promotion
Speaking to Submission Radio earlier this year, Nate Diaz's coach Cesar Gracie suggested that the UFC purposely refused to book Diaz against fighters who'd have been relatively easier stylistic matchups for him than Khamzat Chimaev.
Cesar Gracie insinuated that the UFC brass are probably of the view that Diaz won't re-sign with them. Ergo, they want the Stockton native to leave the promotion on a losing note. Addressing the Diaz-Chimaev matchup that'll headline UFC 279 on September 10th, Gracie said:
“When you wanna leave the UFC, they wanna make sure you're not gonna leave as a winner. They wanna make sure that you’re not gonna help another organization out is what I’m thinking.”
Watch Gracie's assessment below: