Nate Diaz says Charles Oliveira turned down a fight with him before calling out Conor McGregor, and he does not sound amused. In a recent interview, Diaz said he had asked to fight Oliveira respectfully after Oliveira won the BMF title, only to hear, in his words, “no, thanks homie.”
Diaz said he had been waiting for something to happen once Oliveira got the belt. Instead, he said, Oliveira told him he was trying to fight for titles and “do all this big s***,” then moved on after one fight to call out McGregor. Diaz, a massive fan favorite in his own right, framed the sequence as a mismatch in judgment, especially given that Oliveira had just said no to him before looking toward a bigger name.
“Oliveira got the belt and I was waiting for s*** to happen,” Diaz said, adding that he had long wondered why he and Oliveira never met in the cage. He said Oliveira was “the man” but also noted that he has been around longer than Oliveira, and that people had always assumed Oliveira would beat him even as Diaz was building his own reputation.
Diaz said he approached the matchup respectfully. “So when he finally got the belt and was around, I was like oh s***, I’ll fight f*cking Oliveira. So I said what’s up with Oliveira? Respectfully, I’d like to fight Oliveira. He’s been around and he said ‘no, thanks homie.’ [He said] ‘I’m trying to fight for titles and do all this big s***’ and I’m like OK, you got me on that. I don’t have the belt and I’m like you could say that you little f*cker,” Diaz said.
The tension, for Diaz, is that Oliveira then took a different path almost immediately. “Because you’re right there and then he won f*cking one fight and then he called out Conor. That’s exactly what I thought when he called out Conor,” Diaz said. He questioned why Oliveira would target McGregor at that moment, saying McGregor was coming off a leg break, had just been knocked out and was on a downward spiral, while Oliveira had just brushed off Diaz by saying he was focused on bigger things.
The exchange fits the broader way fans have long seen both men: Oliveira as a popular fighter who approached MMA differently, and Diaz as someone who has spent years insisting he belongs in the biggest possible bouts. What makes this one land now is the contrast in timing. Oliveira passed on Diaz, took one fight, won, and then pointed at McGregor. Diaz is left arguing that the choice said as much about priorities as it did about matchmaking.
For now, the callout sits in that awkward space between public challenge and practical fight booking. Diaz has made clear he wanted Oliveira first, and Oliveira made clear he wanted something else. That leaves the matchup Diaz wanted unresolved, while the name he says Oliveira chased next is still the one that defines the argument.
