Andrew Ravens
Matt Brown is not convinced by Nate Diaz‘s public explanation for turning down a UFC return in favor of fighting Mike Perry on the May 16 Netflix card headlined by Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano. Speaking on The Fighter vs. The Writer, Brown argued that the Netflix deal almost certainly paid more than whatever the UFC was offering and that Diaz’s framing of the decision as a matter of principle does not hold up under scrutiny.
The situation began when UFC CEO Dana White revealed that the promotion had been in talks to bring Diaz back, but believed Most Valuable Promotions had made him an offer he could not refuse. Diaz pushed back publicly, claiming the UFC had actually offered him more money for a trilogy fight against Conor McGregor and that he turned it down because he was not interested in facing McGregor on his “last dying f—ing leg” after five years out of action. Brown knows Diaz well enough to respect the framing but does not accept it at face value.
“Money talks,” Brown said. “He’s making more money with this Netflix fight than he would with the UFC. That’s why he’s not fighting Conor in the UFC. I lean towards believing Dana on this. He got an offer he couldn’t refuse. Now, how Nate’s spinning it with the way the contract is structured, maybe there’s something behind the scenes under some layers that we’re not privy to just yet. But there’s no way he’s not making more money.
“I don’t believe it for a second that he’s not making more money with this Netflix deal, however that plays out, his bank account ends up with more money from this fight than it does in the UFC, or he doesn’t take the fight. He’s going to pick the highest bidder. I don’t think that’s unique to Nate Diaz, but I think he understands this is prize fighting. He’s fighting for money. He’s going to take the highest pay.”
Nate Diaz’s MVP Deal
Brown’s broader theory is that Diaz’s deal with MVP may have come with fewer strings attached than a UFC return would have, and that contract structure could be as significant a factor as the upfront money itself.
“Either there’s something more to this, like potentially he didn’t want to sign another contract with the UFC or something along those lines,” Brown said. “When they say an offer he can’t refuse, maybe that wasn’t just money. Maybe there’s something else behind the scenes with that. When he says they offered him more money, up front, they offered him more money — is there some backdoor thing going on?
“It doesn’t make sense to me that he would just simply accept lesser pay for what is probably going to be a tougher fight for him. There’s something where the math is not adding up. Some things are going on behind the scenes, behind closed doors, that we don’t know about.”
