Diaz a Reminder of U.F.C.’s Star Challenge
Nate Diaz, who fights this weekend at Madison Square Garden, is one of the U.F.C.’s top draws. The promotion isn’t as deep when it comes to stars for the future.
ByKevin Draper
Nate Diaz arrived half an hour late to a Midtown Manhattan hotel ballroom Thursday afternoon, sat down in front of a crowd of reporters and proceeded to talk about anything but his fight Saturday against Jorge Masvidal at Madison Square Garden.
He was animated discussing his veganism (“The vegans get mad, though, because I’m not full vegan.”), his triathlon training (“It’s another world. Those guys are no joke.”) and his love-hate relationship with mixed martial arts (“I don’t like not fighting. It’s self-destructive fighting and it’s self-destructive not fighting. Kill or be killed.”).
It was vintage Diaz, the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s most mercurial star, who made it clear there are a lot of others places he could be besides the octagon on Saturday night.
“I don’t ever have to fight again,” said Diaz, who is 34. “I didn’t have to fight a long time ago, but what am I going to do?”
The U.F.C. comes to Madison Square Garden at an interesting time for the mixed-martial arts organization. A bushel of stars like Diaz, Daniel Cormier and Ronda Rousey are much closer to the end of their careers than the beginning, and the fighters coming up behind them lack the same wattage.
And then there is Conor McGregor, the elephant in every room.
McGregor retired in March, for the second time, only to hold a news conference in Moscow last week to announce he was returning to fight early in 2020. McGregor has fought only once in the octagon since 2016, a loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov last fall (he also boxed against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2017). McGregor, a native of Ireland, undoubtedly remains the U.F.C.’s biggest star, but it isn’t clear he is anywhere close to its best pound-for-pound fighter.
A number of outside factors, including legal troubles, could play into a potential McGregor return.
He also needs an opponent. Dana White, U.F.C.’s president, said Wednesday that he was targeting Donald (Cowboy) Cerrone for a fight with McGregor in January in Las Vegas, but cautioned that “nothing is even close to being done.”
The economics of fighting sports are notoriously volatile. With no consistent season and huge chunks of revenue coming through pay-per-view purchases, the money swings up and down based upon a couple of nights a year.
U.F.C.’s parent company, Endeavor, has insulated itself from this volatility over the past 18 months through its agreements with ESPN. First, most lower-tier cards were placed on cable television and the company’s ESPN+ streaming service, and later it agreed for ESPN to exclusively sell its pay-per-view fights in the United States.
The contracts guaranteed Endeavor a steady revenue stream it could show potential investors in the run-up to a planned initial public offering this year. But after a delay, the I.P.O. was canceled in September because of weak demand for Endeavor shares.
Endeavor and the U.F.C. want to be able to tell a story about growth, and this week in New York, their most fascinating storyteller is more interested in going to war with the U.F.C. than with his actual opponent.
Diaz announced last week that he had tested positive for a banned substance and wouldn’t be fighting on Saturday. But the U.F.C. and the United States Anti-Doping Association quickly clarified that while Diaz had tested positive for an elevated level of a banned substance, it was because of a contaminated supplement and he had not committed an antidoping violation.
If he didn’t actually commit a doping violation, why did Diaz go public?
“It’s making me lose sleep at night,” Diaz said Thursday. “So I’m like, this is war and this isn’t fair. I’m not sleeping. U.F.C. is sleeping. Jorge Masvidal is sleeping.”
After profanely saying he wanted to turn that around, Diaz continued: “Ain’t nobody is sleeping. Woot woot woot. Fight’s off. Now nobody can sleep, and I was in bed smiling.”
Masvidal, Diaz’s opponent, brings his own circus to the fight. President Trump is expected to attend, one week after he was vociferously booed during a World Series game. Masvidal is one of a number of U.F.C. fighters who vocally support the president.
Masvidal said the “money that he’s made, the obstacles that he’s conquered” made Trump admirable, “no matter what your political views are.”
Masvidal, who is of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent, acknowledged that his support of Trump could anger many of his fans. “I don’t want to get too much into politics, though, you know,” he said. “A lot of my Latin community might get upset at me.”
There is a long-running association between the Trumps and the U.F.C. In the early 2000s, a number of fights were held at the since-closed Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, N.J. The president’s sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump also attended a U.F.C. fight in Newark in August.
It’s a strange situation, then. The crowd’s reaction, no matter what it is, and anything the president says or does will be the biggest story of Saturday night’s fight. The second biggest could well be McGregor. Dwayne Johnson, the actor who wrestled under the nickname The Rock, plans to be on hand to present a special belt to the winner of Diaz-Masvidal.
And yet, despite no title fights or marquee names beyond Diaz, the U.F.C. 244 card is extremely deep, filled with fighters mixed martial arts fans are excited to watch. The fight costs $60 for pay-per-view, and there is reason to believe it could sell well.
But if those in the audience, or tweeting from Ireland, overshadow those fighting in the octagon, at what cost?
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