Nate Diaz’s ultimate grievance against the UFC has been the lack of respect he believes he is getting. As one of the company’s marquee names, the 32-year-old Stockton native feels he is not getting the recognition that is due to him.
Diaz went on a lengthy rant about his issue during his second MMA Hour special last Wednesday.
“Why aren’t we on blast everywhere? Can I be marketed? Why am I not on the f—king Wheaties box? Look at the Wheaties box right there — more people know me than him,” Diaz said, referring to Anthony Pettis, who appeared on the cover of the box in 2014. “How come when I go to UFC on FOX, all these dorks are on the wall? Can I get a picture on the wall? Can I get promoted and marketed in a positive way?”
“Like I said, I race, I’m a vegan, I do triathlons, I f—king teach kids. But all they want to do is (promote) middle fingers and hide me out in the dark corners still.”
“They try their best to not talk about us. It’s like, as soon as somebody says ‘who’s the stars?’ they’ll purposely not say me and Nick,” Diaz continued. “But we’re still getting invited to huge parties. They’re still calling. The only ones who ain’t calling are you. We’re not going away.”
One of the issues that Diaz also brought up is the non-inclusion of him and his elder brother Nick at UFC 209. But for him, the UFC was more at a loss with that than they were.
“It was almost like an ego thing the UFC was playing. Like, no one even called. People were demanding it all over my Twitter and sh-t. People were like, ‘why aren’t Nick and Nate on 209?’ No one called. Why didn’t anyone call for that? I hear people saying they dropped the ball. They did drop the ball on that one.”
“I think it would’ve made sense,” Diaz said. “Like I said, I don’t want to fight nowhere, but it’s what should’ve happened. Right? Isn’t it what should’ve happened? Shouldn’t they have done that? Everybody was expecting it already, why wouldn’t they have no tried to make that happen? They didn’t even attempt it. They just want this to die out. They want me to die out and go away.”
About the author
