Nate Diaz Caught Up In Brawl While Filming Reality Show With Jon Jones In Thailand

In news that will surprise no one, the filming of a Russian reality TV show in Thailand featuring Nate Diaz, Jon Jones, Jake Shields and a bunch of fighters from Dagestan and Chechnya quickly descended into chaos.

Diaz’s long-time friend and training partner Shields described what happened in a new video, including footage of flashpoint moments on set.

Jones and Diaz had been brought in as coaches for the TUF-style show, and it seems like the two UFC stars were getting along well, but meanwhile tensions were running high amongst the cast, with Shields claiming that several spur-of-the-moment fights were breaking out during filming.

And adding fuel to the fire, there were concerns that some of the cast members from Dagestan had issues with Diaz due to the fact he’d slapped Khabib Nurmagomedov at an event several years ago.

That set the stage for a major flashpoint when the fighters had a chance to meet Jones and Diaz. One fighter is seen greeting Jones, but then quickly turning aggressive when he goes over to Diaz, which inevitably leads to the Stockton native slapping him.

Chaotic scenes ensue as the two are then held apart, and the troublemaker gets punched by someone from Diaz’s crew.

At this stage it’s worth pointing out that the instigator is a known trouble-maker named Zalimkhan Yusupov, who has a poor 19-17 career record, but has carved out a reputation as a wild-man on this reality show.

In particular Yusupov is known for his habit of randomly sneaking up on people and choking them out, which he apparently even did to Aljamain Sterling when he served as a coach on the previous season of the show.

Getting back to the current situation, Yusupov apparently was removed from the scene of the brawl, but kept returning, and on the third of fourth occasion when he attacks a ‘media guy’, Shields decides to step in and teach him a lesson.

However, as Shields tries to mount him and land ground-and-pound, he’s jumped while on the ground by several other people and has to back off. Shields alleges that some of those hitting him were actually crew members rather than fighters, and given that by that stage there was over a hundred potentially hostile people swarming around the mansion they decided it was time to leave.

Diaz and Shields did exit safely and though there were reports that some of the fighters were trying to hunt them down on motorcycles, Shields claims that there was no further trouble and they cut ties with the show and a few days later flew back home to California.

Check out Shield’s full video below.