UFC
Nick Diaz says he scored a deal he couldn't refuse to return for Anderson Silva bout at UFC 183
Nov 24, 2014 - 3:00:49 PM Nick Diaz says he scored a deal he couldn't refuse to return for Anderson Silva bout at UFC 183

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Nick Diaz wasn't willing to come back to the UFC to fight again unless they were going to offer him one of a few particular fights, amongst other things. In an interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour on Monday, Diaz explained why that's what essentially happened when he sat down with UFC brass this summer.

"I mean, I wasn't going to walk out of there with something I wasn't happy with," Diaz said of his negotiations with the UFC this summer to return at UFC 183 against Anderson Silva. "So I just, you know, I was able to score a deal I can't refuse. That's how I look at it. I look back and think about why did I take one of these, you know, mediocre level opponents or fights, or something like that. I could see myself going, 'I didn't need to do that, I didn't need to go there.'

"I'm not fanatical or in love with being an MMA fighter. It's just, I'm the right guy for the job nowadays. Pretty much after my first couple pro fights I wound up being the right guy for the job, so that's why I'm still here, and I'll fight the right fights if I have the opportunity."

Diaz is expected to be the underdog against Silva in Las Vegas on Super Bowl weekend, but it's a position in which he feels more than comfortable.

"I was supposed to lose every fight that I fought," he said. "For the most part, since the time I was in EliteXC fighting, maybe there were one or two fights here and there that they had me to win, but for the most part I've been an underdog.

"I'm not a kickboxer so I'm going to lose to a kickboxer. I'm not a wrestler, my wrestling sucks, so I'm going to lose to a wrestler. Or you know, I'm fighting somebody twice my age, a long time ago. So I've always been kinda not favored to win. But, you know, I wound up with a decent performance out there or I pulled it off."

Diaz and Silva headline UFC 183 on pay-per-view on January 31, 2015, with Diaz fighting for the first time since March of 2013.

Penick's Analysis: The UFC got to a point where they finally needed a Diaz fight more than he needed them. It wasn't that way after his loss to St-Pierre last year, but fast forward 18 months, after countless major injuries, drug test failures, and other things holding off big fights, and they absolutely needed a spark. The announcement of Diaz-Silva for Super Bowl weekend finally seemed like that spark, because from there, several other major fights were then lined up for this three month stretch coming up starting on Dec. 6. Diaz may or may not fight again after the Silva fight, because if he loses it will have been three straight in the loss column, and he might not command the type of fight he'd be interested in taking. Still, for at least this fight, he's gotten what he wanted, and that's a win in and of itself.

[Nick Diaz art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]