‘I’m Never Going To Retire!’

Esther Lin, MMA Fighting

Rumors of Nate Diaz’s retirement from the sport of mixed martial arts are greatly exaggerated.

Nate Diaz isn’t retired! What made you think something stupid like that?

That’s the gist of Nate Diaz’s latest message, which comes on the heels of his last message, which ended “Peace out fight game” and set off a tidal wave of retirement speculation. But according to Nate, people just misunderstood him.

”Who said I was retired? I’ll fight tonight,” he told ESPN. “I’ll fight forever. I’m never going to retire, that’s for sure.”

That’s definitely good to know, especially after all the other stuff he’s been saying since his UFC 244 loss on cuts to Jorge Masvidal in New York City. Immediately after he called for a rematch (despite losing every round on every judge’s scorecard), and straight up said we may not see him for another three years if the UFC wasn’t willing to work with him to secure it. With Dana White making it clear that the promotion had other plans for Masvidal, it all sets up a situation where Nate disappearing again sounded likely.

At the very least, we won’t be seeing the younger Diaz brother back in the cage for a while. He’s got that massive cut above his right eye to heal, and he undoubtedly wants to do that properly this time considering it was the same cut that opened up in his August fight against Anthony Pettis.

He also hurt his knee leading up to the Masvidal fight, which kept him from running and sparring in the lead-up. That in turn stopped him from pouring on the constant pressure as he typically does to overwhelm his opponents.

But now we know: when his body is ready, Nate Diaz is willing to keep fighting. Whether he’ll be able to come to an arrangement with the UFC that satisfies his financial demands and personal interest is a whole other discussion. We’d hope the hype surrounding UFC 244 would make the UFC more willing to treat Diaz as the unique star he is, always entertaining and mysteriously impervious to reputational damage even in defeat.

But I have a feeling they’ll try to stick him back in the co-main, with co-main pay, against some lesser known prospect the UFC is building up the contention ladder. If Diaz says no to that I wouldn’t be surprised, motherf**ker.