Nate Diaz is “training like he has a fight” coming up, says teammate

UFC welterweight superstar Nate Diaz is “training like he has a fight” coming up, according to his teammate Nick Maximov.

Maximov is a training partner of the Diaz brothers and he makes his UFC debut this Saturday night at UFC 266 when he takes on Karl Roberson in a middleweight bout. Nick Diaz, of course, also fights this weekend when he takes on Robbie Lawler, so the whole team has been training hard ahead of the big event. Ahead of his UFC debut, Maximov spoke to MMA reporter James Lynch and was asked about how his training camp is going.

As part of his training, Maximov has been working with the Diaz brothers. Even though Nate doesn’t have a fight announced yet, Maximov says he is training like he has a fight coming up, which could indicate that the UFC is close to announcing Diaz’s next move. However, he doesn’t know who he would be fighting since Dustin Poirier is now booked.

“I actually asked him last night (who he is fighting next) and I don’t think that there is anything is on the table right now. If you look at the December card, Dustin (Poirier) is on it now, they’ve got a couple of championship fights. I’m not super sure what’s happening with that, but I know he wants to fight. He’s been sparring, he’s been running, he’s been training like he has a fight. It’s cool because with our camp if someone has a fight, everyone has a fight. So everyone’s in shape, everyone looks good, and Nate looks really good right now,” Maximov said.

Diaz most recently called out Vicente Luque on social media, so while he has likely moved on from the Poirier fight, for now, there are some other big-name options on the table still.

Who do you want to see Nate Diaz fight next when he returns to the Octagon?