Nate Diaz appears to have now agreed to a trilogy fight with Conor McGregor, just weeks after declaring the pair would never fight again.
The UFC stars each hold a win over one another from their 2016 series of fights, with Diaz winning the first before McGregor earned revenge five months later. But despite the war of words continuing over the years, a trilogy fight has eluded both men amid stop-start runs in the promotion during long lay-offs.
And when Diaz announced last month that he was planning a "retirement" fight with Dustin Poirier, it appeared that fans' hopes of finally seeing the trilogy were to be dashed. But that seems to have changed, with the American now telling McGregor he would be willing to fight him next.
He tweeted a series of posts, first saying "I’ll fight Conor’s dumb a** right now," before adding "but he ain’t capable now or this year". He also taunted McGregor over his broken leg with an emoji alongside a tweet saying "incapable a**," and declared that he has been trying to get a fight in the UFC for the past seven months.
McGregor responded to Diaz's "not capable" jibe with a simple, condescending "Ye, cool pal," and a thumbs up, as well as declaring that "nobody gives a f***, bro" with regards to Diaz's efforts to get back in the octagon this year.
Both McGregor and Diaz are coming off the back of successive losses, but would draw a huge audience to watch them fight again. Diaz returned to the cage after a three-year absence to beat Anthony Pettis in 2019, but has since lost comprehensively to Jorge Masvidal and Leon Edwards.
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Meanwhile, McGregor was kept out of action for a year after his win over Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone in January 2020. And when he returned, he was stopped twice by Dustin Poirier last year, first being knocked out and then breaking his leg in the rematch leading to a doctor's stoppage.
McGregor has often indicated that he would like to see Diaz again in the octagon, with the score currently poised at 1-1. Last year in a Twitter exchange, he declared that the fight would "one billion per cent" happen, and told Diaz: "You should have killed me when you had a chance, but you are no killer."
It came after Diaz had responded to his comment slamming UFC "pull-out merchants", telling McGregor "war was declared along time ago you were already killed." McGregor had tweeted originally said: "Me and all you pull out merchants are not the same! You are b**** made and I’m now steel. This game has just begun. Know that all my enemies are of similar age and experience, and for this reason, I hereby declare this war forever!"
