Nate Diaz got himself kicked out of the Jake Paul vs Anderson Silva fight after slapping a member of the YouTuber-turned-boxer's team.
Diaz, 37, was in attendance at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona to support his teammate Chris Avila, who won a lopsided decision against YouTube star 'Doctor Mike' Varshavski on the undercard of the event. Diaz's appearance was welcomed by the crowd as they gave him a huge cheer whenever he appeared on the screen in the arena.
One clip from the scuffle shows Diaz appearing to slap Paul’s meditation coach, before security separates the two teams to prevent the altercation from escalating. A different angle shows Diaz’s crew being ushered back by security before Avila proceeds to throw a bottle at Paul’s entourage.
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Diaz then walked out to arena floor after the scuffle and was greeted by fans, of whom he took pictures with before being escorted out of the venue by security. The scuffle took place before Paul fought Silva and he was unaware of the situation, but called out Diaz in his post-fight interview.
“I want Nate Diaz, he's a b***h,” Paul said. “He tried to come into my locker room. He tried to cause some shit and then he always leaves the f*****g arena. So Nate Diaz, stop being a b***h and fight me". Paul doubled down on his call-out by stating in the post-fight press conference: "Everyone wants that fight, he tried to fight [my] people in the hallway. Nate, stop fighting people for free, let's do it in the ring."
Diaz is no stranger to an altercation as the fan favourite has gotten into several scuffles with fellow fighters over the years. The Stockton-native got into an altercation at the public weigh-ins for Paul's last fight against former-UFC champion Tyron Woodley and clashed with Khamzat Chimaev before competing in his final UFC fight against Tony Ferguson last month.
Paul has been calling for a fight with Diaz since the beginning of this year and the clash is now easier to make as Diaz parted ways with the UFC last month after spending 15 years competing in the promotion. Diaz admitted a fight with Paul is on his radar when he recently told iD Boxing : "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.”
