Manager: Jorge Masvidal wants to fight Nate Diaz in enemy territory

The idea of a fight between Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz is fascinating enough as is. Any additional elements added to the potential welterweight showdown will be a cherry on top.

On Saturday night, after nearly three years away from the Octagon, Diaz returned to defeat Anthony Pettis via unanimous decision in the co-main event of UFC 241. Following the win, Diaz called for a fight with Masvidal for the, hopefully, soon-to-be made “baddest motherf****r in the game” belt.

Fans around the MMA world immediately showed their enthusiasm for the idea, Masvidal included — who has become one of the sport’s rising superstars following a five-second flying knee knockout win over Ben Askren at UFC 239.

Masvidal’s manager, Abe Kawa also agrees that is the fight to be made.

Kawa appeared on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show Monday afternoon and said that not only does Jorge Masvidal want the fight with Diaz, he wants it to happen in enemy territory.

“I think December in Vegas is probably where he would prefer it,” Kawa explained. “Actually, he wants to go to Cali where Nate’s from. I don’t want to give too much, I’d rather it come from Jorge than me, so I’ll try to keep it as simple as possible. But he looks at this fight more like the [Darren] Till [fight]; he’s gonna go into someone else’s backyard and he prefers that over anything else. So if Vegas is the closest thing he could get to Cali, then, you know, Vegas.”

Following last month’s win over Askren, Masvidal and his team have stated that the only fights they want would be a welterweight title shot, or a showdown with Conor McGregor. Now that Diaz has returned, and re-established himself as one of the game’s top stars, that plan has changed. Masvidal wants the biggest fights with the biggest dollar amounts attached to them.

A fight between Masvidal and Diaz would be a huge draw, something the UFC, the managers and the fighters would benefit from in a big way. Kawa says that discussions for the fight are already underway — beginning on Saturday night — and they hope to discuss it further sooner rather than later.

“I believe that’s a good fight, I think both of these guys will go on, put on a show for everybody and I think that’s what we all want,” Kawa said. “I’m a fight fan at heart, before everything else and if you’re a fight fan, this is like Christmas for everybody.

“Right after the fight, I had a brief conversation with the higher-ups and it looks like they like the fight. That being said, we should be getting together sometime this week to see how that goes.”

Growing up in the 1990’s, the battle between East Coast vs. West Coast was very prevalent in the world of hip-hop. With an old-school mentality, Kawa thinks that a fight between Masvidal and Diaz can bring back that geographic passion amongst fight fans, and the athletes themselves.

“The East Coast swag is different than the West Coast swag,” Kawa stated. “We had Biggie and Tupac, and now we have Nate and Jorge.”

On what card would you like to see a fight between Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 8/20/2019.