Yahoo Sports Nick Diaz Adds to Nate's UFC Rant: “I'm Not Going Backwards… I'd Rather Work at Wal-Mart”
UFC president Dana White may not have had a lot of contact with the Diaz brothers of late, and right now, he probably doesn’t want to.
There may not be a lot of talking between the brash UFC boss and Nick and Nate Diaz, but Stockton’s most famous MMA fighters certainly haven’t gone radio silent lately. If anything, it’s been the opposite.
After Nate tweeted a few weeks ago about wanting to be released from his UFC contract, and then opened up to MMAFighting.com about how unhappy he is with the “funny money” he’s being paid, brother Nick on Wednesday followed in his footsteps.
“I never considered anything other than to renegotiate my contract or fight Johny Hendricks,” Nick told MMAFighting about what his intentions were when discussing White’s offer of a fight with Hector Lombard. “All I said was, ‘What am I getting paid?’ And he said, ‘Let me check your contract.’ And the last text I got from him was what I would be fighting for.
“I didn't consider fighting for that kind of money. I didn't say anything back to him, right, but usually that means something. I'm not considering even for a second fighting any of those guys for less than $500,000. There's no way.”
With that, Nick sounds resolved to hanging up his gloves if the UFC isn’t will to pay him at least half a million dollars per fight.
“I'm retired. Completely retired. Unless the UFC wants to renegotiate for something I'm happy with or I'm going to be fighting for the world title.”
“I'm not going backwards in this sport ever, especially in pay,” he continued. “I would rather work at Wal-Mart. I have enough money to buy a nice house, do some gigs, save some money.”
Being the older sibling, Nick addressed his brother’s recent outpouring of emotion to MMAFighting, feeling like he was somewhat responsible for his younger brother’s plight.
“You see this stuff about my brother right now? I gotta watch him go through that (expletive). It's kinda harsh. That's my brother. That's my fault that he's even in this,” said Nick. “He doesn't want to fight either, but he's not going to get a job at Wal-Mart, and he didn't make a million dollars his last fight. So he doesn't have a lot of options, and I don't like that.”
White is used to dealing with the bursts of emotion and criticism of the Diaz brothers, but the tag-team effort has him shaking his head.
“If the Diaz brothers want to sit out for the next few years and not fight, they're absolutely, 100 percent, it's their right to do that. They can keep turning down fights and they can keep sitting out, but I just don't know how they're getting money,” said White at a media gathering in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
“I'd rather not go to (expletive) work either. If someone wants to pay me to not work, I'll take it. (But) that's not how it works.”
