Former UFC champ Michael Bisping believes there are a bunch of options for Nate Diaz's next fight.
Diaz was back in action last Saturday in Los Angeles, taking Jorge Masvidal in the boxing ring. While Diaz lost his first encounter with Masvidal in the UFC back in 2019, he came out on top in the rematch with a hotly debated majority decision.
The win brings Diaz to 1-1 as a professional boxer, after he lost debut to influencer Jake Paul last year.
In Bisping's mind, the Masvidal win helped Diaz undo some of the damage caused by the loss to Paul.
"This was a different Nate Diaz," Bisping said in a video posted to his YouTube channel. "If you look at Nate Diaz, and the way that he performed against Jake Paul, I thought it was going to be a bad night for Nate Diaz [against Masvidal], but I was wrong. He came in motivated, in shape and super aggressive from the very get-go. As soon as the fight started, Nate Diaz was on him, he was in his face, he was relentless. It was phenomenal.
"I think Masvidal landed the cleaner shots, the more powerful shots, but Nate Diaz was in his face the whole time," he added. "Nate Diaz was there the whole time, pressuring him backwards, throwing long, awkward, kind of unorthodox combinations. He was walking him down. He was the aggressor."
"I’ve got nothing but respect, and it was a newfound respect because I thought he kind of dropped off against Jake Paul. [That loss] was a little bit embarrassing, but that [fight with Masvidal] was phenomenal and it showed that Nate Diaz is still a force and he’s still got to be respected."
After defeating Masvidal, Diaz set his sights on a rematch with Paul, and also on a title fight with UFC welterweight champ Leon Edwards.
Bisping seems to see a Paul rematch as a viable option for the former UFC star.
"He’s a man that now has a lot of options," Bisping said of Diaz's next move. "Maybe now he gets to rematch Jake Paul, but Nate Diaz has a lot of options."
Bisping sees former UFC welterweight and middleweight Darren Till, who also won a pro boxing match over the weekend, as another option for Diaz. He also named Tommy Fury and Mike Perry as possible future opponents.
"Darren Till, he wants a piece of Nate Diaz as well," he said. "He wants Jake Paul as well. So there’s a nice little love triangle going on with Jake Paul, Nate Diaz, Darren Till. Tommy Fury makes it a love square — probably a love hexagon [if] you throw in a few other people, a few other [expletive] heads, Mike Perry. He’s not a [expletive] head, I’m not saying that, I love Mike Perry."
