Nate Diaz wants out of his exclusive UFC contract, but believes that the promotion have him "held up" ahead of his last fight.
The iconic MMA fighter defeated Conor McGregor after a lengthy career at the top of the lightweight and welterweight divisions in 2016, catapulting to global superstardom. But he was unable to build on that momentum after losing their hastily arranged rematch as he has fought just three times since his second bout with the Irishman.
Diaz has publicly stated his interest in fighting YouTube star Jake Paul in the boxing ring, but signed to a rigid contract with the UFC, which he is begging to leave. He has vowed to fight as soon as this weekend in an effort to get out of his contract, but the promotion are hesitant to let him go with a big result.
"My last fight was in June of 2021," he told Ariel Helwani in a special broadcast of The MMA Hour tonight. "I've been working on it. I was trying, a month or two went by and I was ready to go.
"I asked for several fights, but I got held up - I'm getting held up. I've been held up since the last fight, I wanted to get a fight going but they don't want to let me out of the contract so it's f***ing going on and on and on but I'm ready to rock."
His most recent outing, just his third in the last six years, was a losing effort to Leon Edwards last summer. The Brit has since moved on to a world title opportunity, just as his previous opponents Jorge Masvidal and McGregor did.
But Diaz has no interest in fighting for a UFC belt, and is begging to be released so that he can compete in other disciplines. He claims that the current UFC roster provides no interest to him, and he has insisted that he won't sign even a record-breaking new deal with the promotion.
"I wasn't pushing the issue, I figured it would just start happening," Diaz explained. "I don't know why I figured that but I thought that they would just keep the ball rolling.
"I was already out for a while, and I realised lately that all the time that I was off, they wanted me off. They wanted me to linger in a contract rather than let me out on my own doing some s***.
"If I wasn't fighting they were fine with it because I'm still in contract and I wouldn't be out doing something else. So that's where they wanted me."
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Diaz was offered a fight with the fast-rising grappler Khamzat Chimaev, who recently defeated Gilbert Burns to shoot up the welterweight rankings. And after initially turning down the bout, in which Chimaev would have been a massive favourite, Diaz decided to accept, but it had been rescinded.
"They haven't offered me anybody," he said of the UFC. "I've been asking for fights since whenever, I asked for a lot of fights. I asked for Vicente Luque, I asked for Tony Ferguson, I asked for about four or five people and there was no go on their side.
"Then they finally offered me the Khamzat fight and I gave a little 'what the f***?' But finally I was like 'why not? Let's just get it done with and over with' so I asked for that fight.
"Then all kind of excuses started happening - I wanted December, January, I wanted March, I wanted all of these dates and then nothing.
"I've been trying to get this show on the road but they don't want me out of contract. They're keeping me in and holding me hostage, but I want out, that's my main objective here."
