Dana White has gone on record saying that Nate Diaz doesn't 'need' to fight in the UFC ever again after the pay-day he got for his second fight with Conor McGregor, but that may change if he is judged to have acted unfairly in the dismissal of his former agents.
That is what the UFC lightweight is being accused of, as the team who negotiated his pay for his fights leading up to the rematch with McGregor, including their first fight at UFC 196, believes they were unfairly and unexpectedly dismissed right after agreeing the deal for the rematch at UFC 202.
A report from TMZ Sports suggests that Diaz cut ties with his agency before the fight but after the negotiations were done, and the fact that he shared none of the money he earned from UFC 202 has resulted in a lawsuit being filed.
The Ballengee Group filed a lawsuit in District Court in Dallas claiming they had worked with Nate since 2014 and hammered out deals on several big fights including Rafael Dos Anjos, Michael Johnson and the first McGregor fight at UFC 196.
But Ballengee claims things got icy between the two sides in July 2016 -- right after sealing the deal for Nate to fight Conor at UFC 202 in August.
Ballengee claims Nate "unexpectedly" fired them -- and never paid them their cut for the UFC 202 fight, which was reportedly the biggest UFC pay-per-view ever at the time. According to the suit, filed by attorney Jason Friedman, Ballengee is demanding more than $1 MILLION in damages.
We can only imagine that letter was not well received in Stockton.
Nate Diaz is yet to fight since the rematch in August, 2016 and has remained coy on his future plans to fight in the organisation as he clearly feels he is worth more than he has been offered since defeating Conor McGregor.
If he is forced to fork over what would be half of his disclosed pay from UFC 202, we may seem him back in the Octagon sooner than we expected.
