Nate Diaz Details The Time He Slapped Khabib Nurmagomedov
Nate Diaz had a run-in with Khabib Nurmagomedov back in 2015 where it was shown he slapped the undefeated Dagestani champion. Now, years later, Diaz looked back on the incident in an interview with Ariel Helwani.
“I’m not into this bully s***, he’s [Nurmagomedov] into bullying and stuff, that’s his thing,” Diaz said on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show (transcript via South China Morning Post). “When I ran into him and his team at the World Series, I was standing there watching Jake, my friend, fight. And they took a group picture with me behind them, just to laugh at me, make fun of me.
“[Nurmagomedov] is like, ‘Ah, come on, man’ and they’re all laughing, 12 Russian dudes. I slapped him in his face for making fun of me and I’m like, ‘What?’ And he didn’t do nothing.”
The incident got Diaz kicked out, and he then says he waited outside for Nurmagomedov to exit.
“I was outside furious,” Diaz recounted. “So I waited for him to come out there and I went to get him again and he ran off.
“I shouldn’t have done that. It was reckless, it was stupid. I was mad, but he was picking on me. So now he’s trying to act like ‘Mr Make It Right’. ‘I’m Mr Good, this guy’s a piece of s***, I don’t need this trash talk’. Whatever, you were gonna pick on me … trying to act like the victim, that Conor [McGregor] was picking on him.”
Diaz is preparing to take on Jorge Masvidal in the main event of UFC 244 on pay-per-view (PPV) this weekend. The winner will be declared the new Baddest Mother F*cker Champion.
What do you make of Diaz’s story regarding his altercation with Nurmagomedov?
