UFC superstar Nate Diaz posted on social media Friday less than 24 hours after longtime rival Conor McGregor announced his return to combat sports. Diaz, 35, posted, rather cryptically, “I be out soon.”
I be out soon
What Was Diaz Trying to Say?
But what does that mean?
Most of the comments responding to the American’s post on Twitter were either jokes or honest efforts to decode the tweet.
In fact, some of the responses simply asked Diaz to explain what he means.
But Diaz isn’t a prolific social media user. He doesn’t post his thoughts daily the way some UFC fighters do, and he’s not been known to troll fans for fun.
Diaz does occasionally drop bombshells via his Twitter account, but he doesn’t usually just tweet nonsense.
With McGregor announcing on the same day just hours prior to Diaz’s tweet that he was planning to participate in a boxing match against Manny Pacquiao and was both willing and able to face UFC welterweight Diego Sanchez soon as well, some have suggested Diaz is letting the world know that he won’t be sitting around waiting to make superfights forever.
That interpretation implies Diaz’s tweet is intended to warn that his retirement is on its way and that if McGregor and the UFC truly want to make a third fight happen between the two longtime rivals, time is of the essence.
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Is Diaz Threatening Retirement
More troubling to fans of Diaz would also be the fact that UFC welterweight Colby Covington claimed to have the inside track on facing Jorge Masvidal next.
Covington made an appearance on Greg Kelly Reports that he was going to fight Masvidal in December, which is around the same time the UFC was supposedly working on making Diaz’s “BMF” title rematch against Masvidal happen, too.
“It’s looking like hopefully December…”, Covington told Kelly about facing Masvidal next.
That idea didn’t come out of the blue.
Before trouncing former UFC champ Tyron Woodley over the weekend at UFC Vegas 11, the former UFC interim welterweight champion Covington revealed to Heavy that he only had his hopes set on making two fights happen next.
“I want my rematch with [Kamaru Usman]…I want my rematch or I want Street Judas [Jorge] Masvidal for all the sh** he’s talked,” Covington said. “I want him to come try to cash that check that his mouth has been writing. He talked the talk, now it’s time to walk the walk.”
With UFC welterweight champ Usman seemingly on his way to facing Gilbert Burns later this year at UFC 256, it would seem pretty clear that Covington’s mind would be set on getting Masvidal in the Octagon instead.
Usman has already defeated both fighters, but a good argument could be made that either Covington or Masvidal would earn another title shot by beating the other.
Diaz’s Future Is Unclear As Latest Tweet
Where that leaves Diaz is unclear.
While Diaz has been a much bigger star over his career than Covington has been, he’s also been inactive.
Since splitting fights against McGregor in 2016, Diaz has only fought twice.
Diaz defeated Anthony “Showtime” Pettis at UFC 241 in August 2019 and lost to Masvidal at UFC 244 three months later.
Now, Diaz is tweeting he’ll “be out soon” with everyone left to interpret what it means and why he said it.
If it’s aimed at McGregor or UFC officials about McGregor, Diaz’s point certainly stands.
The two superstar fighters are 1-1 against each other and most would have probably expected their historic rivalry deserved a third fight by now.
If that’s the case though, Diaz would seemingly now find himself in line behind boxing champ Pacquiao and UFC welterweight Sanchez.
That doesn’t make much sense, but neither does Diaz’s post about “being out soon” unless it has something to do with his biggest rival McGregor’s massive announcement.
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UFC’s Nate Diaz: ‘Be Out Soon’