What’s next for Nate Diaz?

On Saturday at the UFC Vegas 41 press conference, UFC President Dana White admitted Nate Diaz only has one fight left on his current contract, with talks of a potential fight with Tony Ferguson being shut down.

Throughout the week, Nate, Tony and Conor McGregor all shared words about each other, causing fans to begin speculating, who’s fighting who?

It began on October 21st, when ‘El Cucuy’ posted a photo of himself and The Notorious one captioned ‘unfinished business’. He then tweeted his coined phrase, “Where You At McNuggetts!?!” in an attempt to get under the Irishman’s skin. Tony was successful with his bait, but according to McGregor, he may have bitten off more than he can chew. In a since deleted tweet, McGregor responded to Tony’s callout saying: “I’m gonna end your life”, claiming that the only thing he’s yet to do in the sport is “kill one of yous rats in there.”

So where does Nate come into this?

Of course, there couldn’t be Twitter beef without the Stockton Slugger getting involved. Just a day after Tony and Conor’s twitter altercations, Diaz merely tweeted a photo of Tony Ferguson raising his interim Lightweight belt, which has now caused fans to speculate what it could mean.

Diaz tweeted a week prior to this saying: “I’m (going to) fight somebody,” so fans have been expecting some news regarding his next bout.

At the UFC Vegas 41 post fight press conference, Dana put a dampener on the speculation of a Ferguson vs Diaz slugfest, but didn’t rule it out completely. He said: “Nate’s got one more fight, we’re working on a fight for him, Tony wasn’t one of the guys we were working on but we’re working on a fight for Nate now.”

So who else could they be lining up to fight the UFC veteran?

The other name that springs to mind is Vincente Luque. The Brazilian has only lost one fight in his last 11, with the loss coming to perennial nice guy, ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson. Before Luque’s most recent win over Chiesa, he made it clear he wanted to fight Nate Diaz at some point, and he’s recently highlighted it again. He told MMAFighting: “I’m really interested in this fight and I know Nate is interested as well so I think it’s the fight to make. I’ve let my manager know I want that fight, Nate has clearly shown he wants that fight and wants to make it happen.”

Diaz has always been keen to fight the guys that no one else really wants to fight, and this stands up with the fact he wants to fight Luque. According to MMAFighting, Nate’s team has made it clear he wants a fight in December, as does Luque.

As exciting as a Ferguson vs Diaz bout would be, especially as it could be the last of Ferguson’s long electrifying career, I wouldn’t be too disappointed, as the possibility of a Diaz vs Luque fight is equally pleasing.

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