Brendan Schaub jumped straight into the Nate Diaz and Daniel Cormier mess and did not leave much room for debate. After Diaz unloaded on analysts and took shots at Cormier, Schaub said the Stockton veteran picked the wrong guy to go at and started talking reckless about someone he sees as one of the sport’s untouchables. The whole thing landed just days after Daniel Cormier blasted Nate Diaz as “average”, so Schaub was stepping into a feud that was already hot.
Schaub’s whole argument came down to one thing. Fame and accomplishment are not the same, and he thinks people mash those together whenever Diaz enters one of these legacy talks. In Schaub’s eyes, Cormier built the kind of championship résumé that puts him in rare air, while Diaz built a different sort of legacy through huge moments, a rabid fanbase, and a career that always felt bigger than the numbers on paper. That distinction matters even more now, with Diaz still chasing marquee paydays outside the UFC and staying in headlines off fights like the upcoming Mike Perry matchup at MVP MMA 1.
Speaking on YouTube, Schaub said:
“I think for some people it works. Like, some people are like, ‘F*ck yeah, man, f*ck those guys.’ It’s his thing, and it’s working; he’s making money, so I don’t hate on him for any of that. The issue is these guys that he’s talking shit about is, if you know anything about the sport of mixed martial arts, every guy he talks shit about is a better fighter and has a better career. So that’s why he’s going for those guys. He’s just barking up the wrong tree when he talks shit to Daniel Cormier. You’re talking about MMA royalty. Now, some of you that are new to the sport will be like, ‘Nate Diaz is royalty.’ He’s not. He’s not. He’s famous, but there’s a difference between being famous and accomplished.”
That is the center of Schaub’s take. He is not pretending Diaz was irrelevant. He is saying star power alone does not put you beside a former two-division UFC champion who went from winning belts to becoming one of the promotion’s main broadcast voices. That is also why this hit harder than a random retired-fighter rant. Schaub was drawing a clear line between cult status and a résumé loaded with titles, title defenses, and big-fight credibility.
Daniel Cormier just COOKED Nate Diaz 😬
“Nathan, we are different people. You’re mad because somebody’s talking about how you’re average. Reality is you’re average. You’ve always been.
You keep punching above your head… You won 21 fights and you lost 13.”
(via @dc_mma) https://t.co/usJal9YSL8 pic.twitter.com/dREe0qQZSo
— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) April 1, 2026
Brendan Schaub says Nate Diaz is mixing business with personal beef
Schaub then dropped the harshest line of the whole rant when the Hall of Fame talk came up.
He said, “So, Nate Diaz had a good career. Just so you’re aware, he will never make it to the Hall of Fame as an individual fighter. Now, maybe his fight against one of his previous opponents, maybe Conor McGregor, he might have a fight to make the Hall of Fame, but as far as him as individual accomplishments, he won’t make the UFC Hall of Fame. That’s just not real. That will never happen. I don’t know if that’s news to you guys, but he won’t.”
That one is going to sting because Diaz’s legacy has always lived in that weird space between cult hero and all-time attraction. He is one of the biggest names the UFC has ever pushed into the mainstream, and his two fights with Conor McGregor are still some of the biggest money fights the promotion has ever touched. Schaub’s point, though, was that those moments are different from an individual résumé strong enough to carry a Hall of Fame case on its own. If anything, it sounds like he sees Diaz’s best Hall of Fame path coming through the fight wing, not the individual wing.
He also said Diaz seems to take the analyst role way too personally. In Schaub’s mind, former fighters like Cormier are doing what retired stars in every sport try to do, stay close to the action, stay on the biggest platform possible, and keep getting paid without having to absorb damage for another paycheck.
Schaub said, “For him, he’s like, ‘Yo, these analysts breaking down fights, I don’t get it. F*ck these guys.’ Yeah, but they’re not criticizing you. It’s literally their job they’re getting paid for, so I think he takes it personal and that’s where I have no issues with Nate. Truth be told, I have zero issues with him. If I saw him, I would be on guard, ready to go, which I welcome any of that, but I would just be like, ‘I don’t get where we got off on the wrong foot. I don’t get why there’s an issue between us.’”
That part lands because Diaz has spent years building his image around being anti-establishment, anti-media, and anti-anybody telling him what he is supposed to do. But analyst work is not some side hustle thrown together for clicks. Cormier turned it into a real second act, and Schaub’s point was that Diaz is reading that job as disrespect instead of understanding it as one of the best exits a fighter can get. Schaub has made the same kind of sharp commentary himself in other spots, including when he ripped the UFC heavyweight division as “dying, if not dead”, so this is not exactly new territory for him.
Schaub kept pushing that point when he compared Cormier’s post-fighting path to the outside-the-box fights Diaz has chased in recent years.
He said, “It’s like, ‘Why are you an analyst now?’ I think DC’s [47]. ‘Why are you an analyst now?’ You’re talking about one of the biggest gigs in combat sports next to Joe Rogan and Jon Anik. ‘Why are you an analyst now?’ Buddy, there’s nothing more sad than when a guy’s over the hill and has to fight Jake Paul and do these other shenanigans to make their money, to make their nut. There’s nothing more sad than that when a guy’s over the hill—and it’s not that Nate can’t compete, but he’s definitely out of his prime, he’s 40—Nate Diaz has no other option than to do these kind of other-lane fights. The Jake Pauls, Mike Perry on MVP, some of these other shenanigans. There’s no other option.”
Schaub twisted the knife a little deeper by adding:
“And you don’t think DC could do that? You don’t think DC could unretire and get out of his contract and fight Francis or some wild shit in MVP? Of course, he can. Nate, he doesn’t have to. He has a job he can do until he’s 70 on the biggest platform in the world.”
That comparison is really the meanest part of the whole segment. Schaub was saying Cormier earned the kind of career arc where he can age into a premium media seat, while Diaz is still relying on event-driven chaos, name value, and the possibility of another spectacle. That does not erase Diaz’s value, but it does frame him as a draw first and a decorated achiever second. And with stories still circling around Diaz’s business moves, including when he explained why he passed on a Conor McGregor trilogy, that divide keeps getting sharper.
He also circled back to Diaz mocking men for crying in public, which has been a recurring shot from him over the years. Linking that to Diaz going after both him and Cormier, Schaub said:
“He has an issue with crying. When he came at me it was, ‘Oh, you’re crying.’ He came at DC, ‘Oh, you’re crying.’ I know you’re coming from Sacramento, it’s this rough hood and all that. So I think to him he thinks crying is like a sign of weakness, which maybe the area he’s from, I guess. But do you realize DC was crying because he lost a world title? Because he put his heart and his soul into that fight, and it didn’t go his way because he lost to the greatest fighter of all time. So the reason he’s crying is his dream was to be the best, and he was a champion. … If Nate Diaz cared as much about fighting as DC did, maybe he could relate more to that.” via MMAFighting
That is what makes this whole thing hit a little harder than the usual retired-fighter back and forth. Schaub was not just defending a friend or taking a random side. He was making a blunt argument about what separates a beloved name from a decorated great. Nate Diaz is still one of the most recognizable personalities this sport has ever had. Daniel Cormier, at least in Schaub’s eyes, is the guy with the résumé that shuts the legacy debate down. Whether people agree with that or not, Schaub did not leave much gray area, and this probably will not be the last shot fired in a feud that already had plenty of fuel.
