Nate Diaz says he “lost count” of how much money the UFC paid him to stay on UFC 279

Nate Diaz says he ‘lost count’ of how much money the UFC paid him to stay on at UFC 279.

It was indeed a debacle – Khamzat Chimaev was was originally supposed to fight Nate Diaz in the welterweight main event – but ‘Borz’ weighed in more than 7 pounds heavy.

The result was that three ‘new fights’ would take place at UFC 279 last Saturday night, September 10th. It would be Nate Diaz (22-13 MMA) vs Tony Ferguson (26-8 MMA). Ferguson was supposed to fight Li Jingliang.  Li Jingliang (19-8 MMA) vs. Daniel Rodriguez (17-2 MMA) and ultimately Khamzat Chimaev (12-0 MMA) vs Kevin Holland (23-8 MMA).

The winners would be Diaz, who finished off the last fight of his current UFC contract, Rodriguez and Chimaev.

All 6 fighters had to agree to the last minute changes to the UFC line-up.

Diaz confirmed the changes came with additional $$’s been forked over by the promotion.

During the post fight press conference, Diaz spoke about the negotiations leading up to the spur of the moment changes made to UFC 279 saying:

“I was like, ‘You gotta pay me — if you want to switch people on one f**king day, I just cut 15 pounds, you make me change my opponent? You gotta give me more than you give any of the champions in this whole organization. They were like, ‘Stupid, we already give you (more).’ Oh, well I want more than that, then!”

The 37 year old Diaz when asked how much more money he got, simply smiled and said:

“I lost count.”

Continuing Diaz said (h/t MMAMania):

“I was in the sauna on my last pound and I was like, ‘What the f**k. All right whatever, let me finish this up and we’ll talk about it. They told me, I was like whatever, let’s just get to weigh-in and tell me whatever’s happening after I eat and re-hydrate. But, I figured this motherf**ker, he’s scared. He got scared at the press conference. I knew it was going to happen. People don’t show up to spar me all the time.”

Speaking about the UFC proposal for him to fight Tony Ferguson, Diaz concluded:

“I didn’t think anything like that would happen, so I was just ready for that. But, you’d figure, right? If you’re in the business this long, I’d be like, maybe Holland or … they didn’t let me fight Chung Li (Li Jingliang), that motherf**ker had the dopest suit in the press conference. You know who I was talking about. I didn’t mean to do that to him. Did you guys see the suit? I felt bad for him on that one, they should have showed him love.”

When asked if Diaz considered not fighting at all at UFC 279, after Chimaev missed weight, he responded:

“I don’t think they were gonna let it be possible, so I didn’t think about that at all.”

As for what is next for Nate Diaz only time will tell but he went out with a win and a larger purse to boot!

Did you watch UFC 279?  What would you like to see Diaz do next?

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