Nate Diaz appears to have poured cold water on a fight with Jake Paul by declaring he doesn't plan to do "anything else".
Paul will take on UFC legend Anderson Silva tomorrow night in Arizona in his sixth professional fight. The YouTube star is hoping victory can take him one step closer to setting up another crossover boxing clash with rival Diaz who recently beat Tony Ferguson in the final fight of his UFC contract.
Diaz had previously claimed he was open to the contest and suggested that he would begin negotiations as soon as he was free from any existing ties that remained with the UFC. However in a surprise U-turn, Diaz may have just dropped the biggest hint yet that Paul's hopes of securing a fight could be over.
In a cryptic message on Twitter, he wrote: "I don’t wanna do anything else." The timing of the tweet could be key given Paul and Silva had just taken to the stage for their press conference hours before.
The UFC veteran is expected to be ringside at the event having secured tickets with a view to potentially calling out Paul at the final bell if he successfully navigates the test posed by the Brazilian. And he suggested Paul remains a key part of his plan to conquer boxing having departed the UFC. "When I was 17-18 years-old and I was starting to fight I was in boxing with my boxing coach," Diaz told ID Boxing.
"There were boxers all over my gym, I was going to box initially but MMA shows were more around my area so I got sucked into MMA and stuck in a cage this whole time with contracts and stuff. So now everything is open for the taking and I've never stopped training for a boxing fight since I started fighting, when the right thing comes we're going to take it.
Who wins if the pair fight in the boxing ring - Jake Paul or Nate Diaz? Let us know in the comments section below
"Jake is for sure one of the options, he's doing big stuff, he's doing really big things and he's got a big fight ahead of him and if he wins that I think people should surely be really impressed by it. And if Anderson does his thing to him that's impressive also so we've got a fight on our hands and I'm looking forward to it. It's 50-50 [between Paul and Silva], we'll see what happens."
Paul previously stated there is hurdles to overcome to secure a fight but is planning to pursue the fight providing he wins this Saturday night. "We will see I think there is a lot of hurdles that he has to get through," Paul told ESPN. "Even getting out of his contract probably I don't know all the details but then I also have to get through some hurdles. First of all I will focus on October 29 but I do want that fight."
