Nick Diaz is back in business with the news that he’s returning to the Octagon to fight Vicente Luque in a five-round co-main event at UFC On ABC 7 in Abu Dhabi on August 3rd.
It’s a surprisingly challenging match-up that Diaz has been handed given that he’ll celebrate his 41st birthday on the eve of the event and has only fought once in the past nine-and-a-half years.
That fight came almost three years ago in September of 2021 when he made a comeback for a rematch with fellow veteran Robbie Lawler and was TKO’d in the third round due to a verbal submission.
Diaz is a beloved figure in the MMA world, but the reality is that he’s actually not won a fight in 13 years, so it seems like a curious choice to pair him up against the 32-year-old Luque, who up until recently was a Top 10 ranked welterweight and still holds the No.14 spot heading into this bout.
That being said, there’s no doubt that Luque has had a tough few years as he had to take a full year out of the sport after suffering a brain hemorrhage following a KO loss to Geoff Neal in 2022.
Luque did then return last year with a unanimous decision win against Rafael dos Anjos, but in his last fight against Joaquin Buckley he looked very uncomfortable taking damage during a ground-and-pound assault from Joaquin Buckley, resulting in a TKO loss while leaving doubts as to whether he’s still the fearless, highly durable fighter he was prior to the brain injury.
Diaz vs. Luque joins a UFC On ABC 7 card that will be headlined by a bantamweight title eliminator between Cory Sandhagen and Umar Nurmagomedov, while Marlon Vera goes up against former flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo.
