Following a yearlong self imposed exile from the UFC, Nate Diaz finally reached an agreement with his longtime promotion that placed him in a significant co-main event slot against Rafael dos Anjos later this year. Although at first glance it may appear as though Diaz is satisfied with the decision, his manager Mike Kogan revealed Diaz is anything but happy with the state of his UFC contract.
“No. F*** no. We weren’t happy when we were signing it,” Kogan told FightHub. “Just kind of made it work because it was two weeks before the fight and there just wasn’t time to be making a lot of waves. It is what it is.”
Kogan and the UFC’s head honcho Dana White have been conflictual for an extended period of time now, with Kogan well aware that he no longer has a working relationship with Diaz’s boss. However, he believes a line should be drawn between attempting to maintain a relationship and not allowing oneself to be bullied and manipulated.
“The guy (Dana) spent a whole year trashing (Nate) and now he’s fighting a No. 3 guy in the co-main event on FOX. Talk about needle movers. If he’s not moving the needle then what is he doing there? How do you get to a co-main event and you’re not a needle mover and you’re insignificant and ‘I don’t care if he never fights again, he can just go away forever.’ Nate is my boy. If somebody talks to him this way, I’m going to say what I’m going to say.
“It is one thing to have a relationship. It is another thing to be bullied around; wake up everyday trying to check the temperature outside to see if its gonna be a good day or not.”
While Kogan believes Diaz is back in the UFC on his “own terms,” there has been no significant changes to his contract. So why has Diaz returned to the octagon? Necessity.
“Nobody said everything’s OK. He (Diaz) is back because he needs to fight. He needs to earn a living. If he was (Floyd) Mayweather making $30 million a fight, he’d probably never come back and you’d never hear from him again, but he doesn’t get paid the kind of money that people think he does. You can’t sit out forever. You have to at some point come back, but at least he came back on his own terms. He got the fight that he wanted against a top three contender.
“So much for not being a needlemover.”
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