Kevin Lee isn’t a Nate Diaz Fan.
UFC Lightweight Kevin Lee has been on hiatus since his 4th round stoppage loss to Interim champion Tony Ferguson late last year. He intended to take a couple of months off, but his inactivity has been extended by the death of his longtime head coach Robert Follis. Lee is now sorting out a new training situation, but appeared on The MMA Hour to call out Nate Diaz as his next opponent.
Lee has many options at Lightweight, but says Diaz is “the fight to make.”
“When you look at it, we’ll just call it what it is. Diaz is coming off the loss to McGregor, who’s the champ. I’m coming off the loss to Tony. I mean, it just makes more sense from a sporting perspective to see, am I going to bounce back? Call it what it is, I got tired versus Tony. Diaz is known for not getting tired. That’s going to answer a lot of those questions, the tiredness, the mental warfare, all of that. It’s going to answer all of the questions.”
Lee also said that him versus Nate Diaz is a phenomenal fight from a promotional perspective. Both of them have a type of gangster image, and both know how to talk. The press events leading up to this fight would be nothing short of a promotional dream for the UFC.
Lee also said that Diaz is vastly overestimating his value in the company. Ever since losing to Conor, Diaz has been asking for ridiculous sums for a return fight in interviews and probably slightly less ridiculous sums in private negotiations. He has undeniable star-power, but Lee thinks his fights don’t justify this status:
“Like, Diaz really ain’t got no clout. He just got clout just because everybody be dick-eating him. But the man, he don’t fight like that. He don’t fight enough to have enough respect, to have enough clout to really call his shots.”
In the end, Lee did his best to paint himself as the best return option for the man from Stockton, but didn’t seem optimistic.
“If he’s really a sportsman, if he’s really a competitor, he knows who to come to. If he was a better man, he probably would, but probably not.”
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