Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor are far from strangers.
The fighters shared the Octagon on two occassions in 2016, with Diaz winning the first clash by a second-round submission (rear-naked choke) and McGregor evening the score with a majority decision victory in the rematch.
Well, a few days away from Diaz fighting Jake Paul in a boxing bout Saturday night, the former UFC star is reminiscing about how the origins of how this fight came to fruition with the "Notorious" involvement of McGregor.
"[Paul] started popping off to a bunch of MMA fighters," Diaz began explaining to boxing legend Andre Ward, who Diaz has sparred with on many occasions. "I was still in [UFC] contract, I had some fights going on. I was trying to get out but not really in a hurry. I was in a hurry but not really in a hurry.
"He started saying stuff about Conor McGregor and his wife and all that stuff," Diaz continued. "I know in Conor's situation that he was in, the best thing to do for him was to ignore him. I didn't have nothing going on, so I was like 'someone needs to tell this dude to shut up because he's out of line.'"
That triggered Diaz into tweeting "Jake Paul u need your ass beat for free u spoiled f—k," among other choice words back in December 2020.
That escalated to on-and-off exchanges between the two, all while Paul went on to defeat several former MMA fighters in boxing, including Ben Askren, Tyron Woodley (twice) and Anderson Silva. All that jawing between the two culminates Saturday night fight against Paul, live on DAZN.
Paul is coming off his first boxing loss in February, when he dropped a split-decision to Tommy Fury.