Nate Diaz And Dustin Poirier Are Hilariously Trying To Force The UFC Into Making Their Madison Square Garden Fight Have A Championship On The Line That Doesn't Exist
If you haven’t been following the ongoing Nate Diaz vs Dustin Poirier/UFC 230 drama that has surrounded the UFC’s return to Madison Square Garden over the past few months, allow me to catch you up to speed.
August 2nd – News breaks that Nate Diaz vs Dustin Poirier has been booked as the co-main event for UFC 230 at Madison Square Garden. Fans are ELATED. It’s been over two years since we’ve seen Diaz in the octagon – his last fight being a majority decision loss to Conor McGregor at UFC 202 – and Dustin Poirier has been on the best, most fun, and most violent run of his career as of late. This was the perfect fight to make. At this point, no main event for the show was announced.
August 3rd – UFC makes official announcement that this fight is happening, and Nate Diaz decides it isn’t.
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Nobody has any idea why Nate tweeted this. We think it’s because Conor McGregor’s title defense versus Khabib Nurmagomedov was also announced on the same day, and he had some sort of issue with that.
Poirier joined in, having some fun teasing Dana White, but wasn’t serious…
Some time passes by, and, as we got closer and closer to UFC 230 with NO SIGNS WHATSOEVER of a main event surfacing, and every available champion booked already – a thought came up…
What if Nate Diaz vs Dustin Poirier was contested at 165lbs, and for an inaugural championship at that weight? After all, there is a jump in weight directly where that division should be (125, 135, 145, 155…170), and the UFC is currently in an era where 150 and 170 are deeper than ever, so in the words of the great and powerful Joey Diaz…let’s have some fuckin’ fun!!!
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Everybody and their mothers are down with this idea from the jump – fans, journalists, fighters – I literally haven’t seen a single person not in favor of this plan still to this day, that doesn’t believe Nate mothafuckin’ Diaz vs Dustin mothafuckin’ Poirier doesn’t deserve five rounds.
September 15th – Anthony “Rumble” Johnson shares a photograph of himself staring down with Jon Jones to his Instagram, both looking like heavyweights.
September 17th – Out of the blue, Jon Jones’ most recent USADA suspension is decided upon, and wouldn’t you know you it…an arbitration deal was struck to give Jones a retroactive suspension allowing him to fight freely at Madison Square Garden, in his home state. So we all figured, that’s gotta be the main event. Jones vs Rumble, FINALLY, at Heavyweight, for an Interim Heavyweight Championship. Either that or Jones/Gustafsson II for an Interim 205 belt.
Ridiculous that either would be for an interim title while the champion is fine could realistically be back in the octagon very soon? Yes. But you know as well as I do how much the UFC loves their excuses for introducing championships recently. They’ll say Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight BOTH need Interim titles to make sure the divisions aren’t being kept on hold for the double champ or something, they’ll say anything.
September 20th – Dana White shocks the world and says that Jon Jones will “100%” NOT be main eventing UFC 230.
Once again, after that, everybody who pays even the slightest bit of attention to mixed martial arts said, “How about Nate vs Dustin, 165lb Championship?” to which Dana White replied, “No.”
That really confuses me, because Nate Diaz is one half of the biggest fight in mixed martial arts history, and this fight comes just one pay-per-view after Conor McGregor’s return to the octagon, so eyes will be on it, and it will draw as a main event. It doesn’t require any other fights to be booked, so no headaches there, and it adds an unnecessary championship to the mix without their fanbase getting upset…something the UFC NEVER *clap* HAS *clap* THE *clap* OPPORTUNITY *clap* TO *clap* DO *clap*.
Which leads us to last night. When Diaz and Poirier decided enough was enough, they played a brilliant hand and just announced themselves as the main event of UFC 230, for the 165lb Championship of the World. Which, as we’ve covered, does not exist. Dana immediately gave comment to ESPN’s Brett Okamoto, stating “it couldn’t be the furthest thing from the truth”, confirming that we had a mutiny on our hands.
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Hysterically, Nate Diaz returned comment on Dana White’s comment, and, well – you can read it for yourself.
Fucking hilarious. God, I love me some Nate Diaz. Hoping he is fighting for the 165lb title at Madison Square Garden, he wins it, and he and Conor complete the trilogy so we can have a Champ Champ Champ on our hands. That’d be one hell of a war, just as the first two bouts were. Even if Dana remains stubborn on this, hopefully Diaz and Poirier weigh in at 165lbs each and have a gentleman’s agreement to just do this shit at catchweight.
But yeah, that’s the latest on Nate Diaz vs Dustin Poirier, at the main event drama surrounding UFC 230 in general. Pretty hectic stuff.