Nick Diaz says he offered to fight Michael Bisping

After months of contract negotiations, former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre is finally poised for a comeback. He will not, however, be returning to the welterweight division he once ruled so dominantly. Instead, he will challenge Michael Bisping for the UFC middleweight title at a to-be-determined date and location, probably sometime in the second half of this year.

Given the way that St-Pierre’s title shot deprives legitimate middleweight title contenders like Yoel Romero and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza of the shots they’ve earned, this booking was an immediately controversial one. Yet Georges St-Pierre is one of the biggest stars in MMA history, so it’s understandable why the UFC gave him the fight he asked for.

Apparently, however, St-Pierre is not the only former welterweight who offered to fight Bisping. In a recent interview with TMZ Sports, former Strikeforce welterweight champ Nick Diaz admitted that he was chasing his own fight with Bisping, though this contest failed to materialize.

“You wanna know the truth?” Diaz said. “I talked to Michael Bisping already, in New York, about doing this fight. There’s more money for him if he takes the fight with me. We’re talking about a catchweight fight, and he’s talking about it as if it’s going to be hard to make the weight. I mean, come on. It’d be a non-title fight, so after I whoop his ass, he still keeps the belt. So that’s more money – then you go fight GSP! Same with Georges. I’m just doing more numbers than he is, so you’ll just make more money fighting me.” 

Would you have preferred a Michael Bisping vs. Nick Diaz fight over a Michael Bisping vs. Georges St-Pierre fight? Or, do you think the shot should have gone to Yoel Romero or Jacare? Sound off in the comments, PENN Nation!

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 3/7/2017.