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Former UFC welterweight title challenger Dan Hardy recently gave his take on Dana White’s comments about Nate Diaz.
Diaz has consistently taken to Twitter this past year to campaign to the UFC for a fight. Most recently, Diaz tweeted that he wanted to compete inside the Octagon in July or August, and if the promotion didn’t oblige, he wanted to be released from his contract.
He only has one fight left with the promotion and in the June 20 tweet, Diaz hinted at wanting a boxing match with Jake Paul. See below:
Well, when The Mac Life’s Oscar Willis asked the UFC president about Diaz’s tweet, White responded by saying Diaz should “probably should go on and fight Jake Paul. That’s a fight that makes sense.” (H/t MMA Fighting).
That comment came on the heels of White saying that Diaz has only earned one victory “in the last five or six years.”
Since 2016, Diaz has competed five times and has gone 2-3.
Hardy Sees White as Being Disrespectful to Diaz, Who He Calls a ‘Cult Icon’
While speaking with Submission Radio last week, Hardy gave his take on the apparent Diaz/White conflict. And “The Outlaw” believes White’s comments are fueled by “unnecessary disrespect” which Hardy thinks “looks bad.”
“Like, when I woke up the other day and I saw the thing about him winning one fight in five years and maybe the best person to fight is Jake Paul, it’s just unnecessary disrespect,” Hardy said via MMA News. “It’s one thing when you get fighters disrespect one another, because that’s kind of a part of the business, but when the promoter starts s******* on people like that, and someone like Nate Diaz, who’s a cult icon, like, it just looks bad.”
Hardy went on to call Diaz an MMA superhero of sorts, even if he sometimes enters the cage seemingly outgunned.
“I don’t think it’s good for anybody,” Hardy continued. “And I think Nate deserves a lot of respect for who he is, and the character and the fun that he brings to the sport. I mean, I didn’t think for a second that he was gonna beat Masvidal, but that fight week was bouncing. It was great to be a there. It was a different thing.
“It always is when a Nate Diaz fight’s happening. He’s one of the superheroes of the sport, and he deserves respect and he also deserves a pocket full of cash. Same as most of these guys do.”
Hardy Said Fighters ‘Don’t Have Freedom’ in the UFC
Hardy’s comments went beyond the conflict between White and Diaz. The Outlaw said that this was just an example of why the promotion is facing a class-action lawsuit.
The lawsuit, which was filed in 2014, claims: “that the UFC used improper strategies to dominate the market for MMA fighter services, allowing it to pay its MMA fighters less than half as much as they otherwise would have received. The fighters also claim that the UFC violated the antitrust laws to the detriment of all MMA fighters.”
“This is the whole reason why there’s a class-action lawsuit against the UFC,” The Outlaw said. “People don’t have any freedom, they don’t have any control over their career. Think about this, every single fighter on the UFC roster and everybody that’s considering signing with the UFC, they need to really contemplate this, if Nate Diaz can be disrespected to the media by the promoter the way that he has been, they don’t care about anybody.
“That’s the sad reality of it. Like, if Nate wants his release, he should get his release. He’s had enough stitches, he’s made enough money for the organization. Let him go. And if that means him going and making a bunch of money or fighting Jake Paul, then so be it, even better. If the UFC have not got their hands in his pockets, I just… I don’t know.
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