Though he would likely choose to fight forever if he could, it appears that Nate Diaz’s career in combat sports is winding down.
Diaz last competed inside the Octagon at UFC 279 where a chaotic fight week led to Dana White calling the press conference off early.
He went on to box Jake Paul and Jorge Masvidal, with a former opponent of his recently revealing that there were talks of him facing Diaz in a rematch but the bout never materialized.
In the meantime, the fan favorite has been keeping himself busy in other ways, though his appearance as a guest coach on ‘ALF Reality’ was short-lived after Diaz and his team got into a brawl.
The 40-year-old recently revealed that everything was coming into place for him to make his big screen debut but he pulled out of starring in ‘Road House’ for one specific reason before Conor McGregor was attached to the project.
Nate Diaz turned down Conor McGregor’s role in ‘Road House’ because he didn’t want to lose a fight to Jake Gyllenhaal
In an appearance on The HJR Podcast alongside Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, Nate Diaz revealed that he was in talks to star in Doug Liman’s reboot of ‘Road House’.
He ended up turning the role down with his former rival, Conor McGregor, taking the part in his place.
Diaz was being lined up to play the main antagonist, ‘Knox’, who gets into several fights with the protagonist, ‘Elwood Dalton’.
‘Dalton’, who is a disgraced former UFC fighter in Liman’s version, was portrayed in the movie by Jake Gyllenhaal, who embarked on a huge press tour with McGregor ahead of the movie’s release.
Diaz stated during the podcast that having been familiar with the original 1989 movie, he knew that playing the villain would mean that he’d have to lose a fight.
After learning who would be playing the role of ‘Dalton’, he declined the part due to one specific movie in Gyllenhaal’s filmography that he’s particularly famous for.
“I was supposed to do Conor McGregor’s part in ‘Road House’. That was my part but I was like, ‘I’m not fighting, I’m not going in there and losing a fight’. I seen the original ‘Road House’. I’m like, ‘So I’m the main bad guy, I’m supposed to fight. Okay, who’s the Patrick Swayze then?’ And they said it was Jake Gyllenhaal and I’m like, ‘I ain’t going in no movie and losing to no ‘Brokeback Mountain’. I’m good.'”
“I’m like, ‘I can’t see it, I can’t do it. I ain’t losing to nobody in no fight.'”
‘Road House’ proved to be a big hit for Amazon despite release controversy
‘Road House’ released in March of last year on Prime Video, having been put together by Amazon MGM Studios.
Amazon went on to report that following the movie’s first two weeks of being on the streaming platform, it had broken records for an original movie produced for Prime Video by hitting over 50 million viewers.
Despite the success of ‘Road House’ on Prime Video, director Doug Liman wasn’t happy with the way that the studio chose to roll the project out.
Liman claimed that despite his confidence in the project, he would be boycotting the movie’s screening at the SXSW film festival after the studio wouldn’t release the movie in theaters.