Nate Diaz may have lost to Mike Perry in his return to MMA, but that doesn’t mean he’s done fighting.
In what was arguably the most anticipated fight on the MVP MMA: Rousey vs. Carano card Saturday, Diaz struggled to get out of the gate with Perry inflicting a lot of damage and opening several nasty gashes during the fight that ultimately only lasted two rounds. Diaz’s coaches stopped the fight due to cuts that had blood pouring down into his face, which affected his vision and ability to block Perry’s
offensive onslaught moving forward.
“I was mad but I understand,” Diaz said about the stoppage at the post-fight press conference. “My eye was leaking out blood and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get that done out there. I don’t think he would have done much more either. But I was f*cking blinded by blood on the right side.”
The fight served as Diaz’s return to MMA following a five-year hiatus from the sport while he pursued outside endeavors, which included boxing matches against Jorge Masvidal and Jake Paul.
Afterwards, Diaz admitted he didn’t feel his best on Saturday and that was likely due to getting back into MMA-focused training for the first time in almost five years.
“I didn’t actually feel good at all. I felt like shit,” Diaz said. “I’m honest. I just got back to MMA and I never was gone but as I got I got closer I realized MMA is hard work. It’s a lot of work. I feel like I just started to callous everything up, my body started to get hard, my legs started to get harder, everything started to move right together and it started to fall into rhythm and then it was time to fight. The way it goes with this shit and now I’m ready to fight. Let’s line up another one and get it going.
“I wish I wouldn’t have gotten banged up and took a f*cking loss for the night. I’m ready to get into action now. The show goes on.”
As much as the result stings, Diaz is already motivated to get back in the gym so he can start working towards a rematch against Perry, which is what he wants more than anything now.
That’s also why Diaz flat-out scoffed at suggestions that his performance Saturday showed he can’t hang with the top fighters anymore and perhaps he should consider calling it a career.
“That’s what I’m saying, the show goes on,” Diaz said. “I feel the same way as when I lost when I was younger. Same as last time. I don’t have a checkout time. This shit is forever.
“When I do check out, I don’t need to be f*cking crying about it. Oh, put my gloves down in the ring. You’re f*cking gone. You’ve got to explain yourself why you’re not fighting anymore? Do whatever the f*ck you want. As of now, I feel like I got a long road ahead of me and a lot of shit to do.”
Prior to the fight, Diaz blasted Dustin Poirier for suggesting he would come out of retirement solely to settle unfinished business between them after he called it a career in 2025. Diaz said he had no desire to face anybody coming out of retirement, especially after watching Poirier endure an emotional goodbye following a loss to Max Holloway in his final fight.
There’ will come a day when Diaz is no longer competing, but unlike Poirier’s sendoff or anybody else retiring in the ring, he’s probably just going to stop fighting and that will be the end of it.
“You won’t [know when I retire],” Diaz said. “This shit is forever anyway. Then people won’t be like, ‘You lost, you should hang them up.’ Isn’t this the most violent motherf*cker who f*cking knocked out the middleweight champion Luke Rockhold and Jeremy Stephens and Eddie Alvarez, he was the lightweight champion forever and he’s popping and he’s doing all this shit, fighting everybody, he’s got a f*cking broken face and broke everybody’s shit all over the place? You should hang them up? I just fought the most violent motherf*cker right there. Maybe I just need to run a little harder next time and get the f*cking job done. You should hang them up! Maybe I just don’t fight the most violent, maybe I just fight the second-most violent.
“People are just like, ‘Maybe I’m done, I’m retired, here’s my gloves in the cage’ and I’m like, you shouldn’t have just not fought the most violent n***** out there alive and you would have been OK.”
Clearly retirement isn’t an option for Diaz, but he definitely has designs on running it back with Perry as quickly as he can heal up from the cuts he suffered in the fight.
“ASAP. Heal up and I’ll started running on Monday,” Diaz said. “Rematch ASAP. Sacramento, Calif. NorCal. As soon as possible.”
