After his latest defeat to Anderson Silva at UFC 183 questions have again been raised regarding Nick Diaz’s fighting future, but his long-time coach Cesar Gracie is confident he will return to the Octagon.
“Let’s face it, He’s a fighter and he’s gonna fight,” Gracie said. “It’s gonna happen. I think a guy like him is better served doing big fights, no matter where they’re at. Seriously, no matter where the fight is — even if he has to go down a lighter weight than even 170. He wants big fights. That’s what motivates him. I think that’s what the greatest guys did was they didn’t look so much at weight classes, but they looked at the big fights that motivate them.”
If Diaz does fight again it won’t be any time soon as he tested positive for marijuana post-fight for the third time in his career and that’s likely to lead to a lengthy ban.
He’s also now fought only three times in the past three years and has lost each time, with a decision victory against BJ Penn at UFC 137 back in 2011 being the last time he tasted victory in the Octagon.
Diaz pocketed $500,000 for his night’s work at UFC 183 and potentially have had a cut of the PPV revenue too, so he isn’t going to be short of money for a while.
A twitter post in the days after the fight included the hashtag “#dunfighting” which adds further evidence to suggest that, as happened after his title bout with Georges St. Pierre in 2013, Diaz is intending to hang up his gloves again and see how long he can last before he needs to fight again.
