Coach: Nate Diaz Deserves $15 Million to Fight Tyron Woodley at UFC 219

If you’ve been holding your breath waiting to find out if Nate Diaz was going to face Tyron Woodley at UFC 219, it might be time to exhale.

Woodley has been banging the drum about facing Diaz ever since the UFC dangled the fight in front of him as a possible headliner for the upcoming card on Dec. 30 in Las Vegas.

The matchup was first rumored because the UFC desperately needed a main event for that card and Woodley facing Diaz would definitely draw a ton of interest.

Unfortunately it appears Diaz doesn’t plan to accept the current offer to face Woodley because the money just isn’t to his liking and with only five weeks to go until the event takes place, the sand has just about run out of the hour glass.

“I don’t think so,” Diaz’s longtime boxing coach Richard Perez told Submission Radio when asked if he thought the fight with Woodley would happen. “The UFC doesn’t want to give Nathan the money. You know, cause what Woodley’s trying to do, he’s trying to get his name up there and he wants to fight the best, so he wants to fight Nathan. But UFC doesn’t want to pay Nathan, so why fight him? We can fight McGregor (instead).

“I saw Woodley talking the other day about Nathan being scared, “scared homie”, you know, but it’s not that. It’s not all about that, because Nathan ain’t scared to fight nobody, it’s the money, and Dana White and the UFC doesn’t want to pay him. But he deserves it.”

As far as monetary figures, Perez is definitely on Diaz’s side when it comes to how much money he deserves to make to stay at welterweight for a fight against a champion like Woodley.

Diaz is a natural 155-pound fighter, but he has fought at welterweight while facing Conor McGregor in two consecutive bouts in 2016. The challenge of fighting the welterweight champion isn’t what’s keeping Diaz away — it’s all about the money.

“15 million (dollars) easy,” Perez said what Diaz deserves to earn. “Easy. Cause, I mean, he’s a star right now. I mean, McGregor can’t even fight right now, he got suspended. And Woodley’s trying to fight everybody. He says McGregor doesn’t want to fight him, he says BJ Penn (sic) doesn’t want to fight him. He’s naming all these people that don’t want to fight him, you know, cause he’s trying to get his name, he’s trying to get up there, and nobody wants to (fight him). I mean, he’s got the belt. So what? The belt don’t mean nothing anymore. It’s about who you’re fighting (if you want) to make the money.”

“And it’s worth it because Woodley wants to get his name out there, he wants to fight the best so he can be noticed. Right now, he’s not really getting a lot of publicity like Nathan does with the people, you know, the crowd. Whether they like you or they hate you, they want to see Nathan. So that’s what he’s going for.”

At this point, all signs seem to say that Diaz won’t be fighting Woodley in the final UFC card of 2017 and while Perez admits anything could change on a moment’s notice, it doesn’t appear likely.

Instead, Perez still looks at the trilogy with McGregor as the fight Diaz would benefit from the most and that’s a fight that would certainly draw the biggest crowd out of anyone he could face in the UFC.

“Well, everybody wants to see McGregor and Nathan,” Perez said. “Woodley is out of the picture. I mean, he’s just blubbering now and talking cause he wants to get noticed, he wants to be up there in top too. I don’t blame him, that’s normal for a fighter cause he has the belt. He thinks the belt’s important, it’s not right now, it’s about who you’re fighting. That’s why he’s trying to get Nathan, he’s trying to get McGregor. But what everybody wants to really see is McGregor and Nathan.

“That’s all I ever hear. People texting me all the time, they call me all the time, it’s still constantly, “when are they fighting? That’s all we want to see”. That’s the fight, that’s the best fight to watch right now. You know, cause the last two fights were great, so the third one has to finish. We have to find out the outcome of that one. So that’s where it should be at now.”