Nate Diaz does not see his win over Conor McGregor as his best fight, despite the bout’s massive impact on MMA history.
In 2016, Diaz stepped in on nine days’ notice to face the featherweight champion after Rafael dos Anjos withdrew. Diaz shocked the world by submitting McGregor in the second round, catapulting him to stardom and setting up a rematch five months later that broke UFC pay-per-view records.
However, for Diaz, the McGregor fight does not stand out as the most significant in his timeline.
Nate Diaz on Conor McGregor: Not My Best Fight
“When we were talking about, ‘What was your best fight?’ … I’m always like, there’s different [ones],” Diaz said on Jake Shields’ YouTube channel. “Because everyone expects, when they ask me that, they expect me to go, ‘Conor McGregor.’ I’m like, bro, settle down. Because Conor McGregor was a huge fight, humongous in my career, but there’s different fights — it’s like a timeline.
“That was the biggest shit when I fought Cowboy [Donald Cerrone]. That was fighting a guy that I thought, ‘You guys are all looking at this bitch-ass motherf*cker? Nah.’ Because he’s the new thing coming from the WEC shit. So I beat his ass and was like, what’s up? And to me, that felt like a big piece of my timeline. …
“And I fought Takanori Gomi, and Gomi was the GOAT when I was f*cking kicking off. It was like, Gomi and B.J. Penn. And then B.J. fought him, and that was the dopest shit you could have done. That’s what I tried to do, what he did — Rumble on the Rock. ‘Uh uh, I can’t do the UFC right now. I want something bigger than that. Something better than that.’”
Diaz faced Gomi and Cerrone back-to-back in 2011 after returning to lightweight. While Gomi was technically the easier fight, the pressure Diaz felt made it stand out.
“It’s like there’s no ‘biggest fight,’ there’s just bigger ones,” Diaz continued. “And biggest in what way? For y’all? Conor, then. That’s my answer [laughs].
“But for me, though, beating Gomi, that was the scariest fight of my life,” he added. “And that’s why it happened so perfect for me. He’s older and not peaking, but I watched him; I based a lot of my fighting off of him. I was like, ‘Bro, shit, you’re the guy, and now I’m fighting you? And Nick fcked you [up] so you’re really mad at me? I’m having a hard time sleeping tonight.’ You might just get fcked up because of that [laughs].” via MMAFighting
Diaz has not competed in MMA since leaving the UFC in 2022 to focus on boxing, where he suffered a unanimous decision loss to Jake Paul in 2023 and a majority decision win over Jorge Masvidal in 2024. He remains ready for the right fight when it aligns with his timeline.
“I’m ready to fight when there’s someone worth fighting,” Diaz said.
