Nick Diaz to return to UFC after six-year layoff in rematch with Robbie Lawler

August 07, 2024

After years away from the Octagon, Nick Diaz will return to the UFC in a rematch with Robbie Lawler.

The pair, who tangled in a 2004 bout won by Diaz, will square off again 17 years later at September’s UFC 266. According to multiple reports, theirs will be a five-round welterweight fight with no title at stake.

The only previous UFC nontitle fight scheduled for five rounds featured Diaz’s younger brother Nate, who lost a unanimous decision to Leon Edwards at UFC 263 in June.

Nick Diaz, 37, has not fought since January 2015, when he lost to Anderson Silva at UFC 183. That result was subsequently overturned when Silva tested positive for performance enhancing substances.

Diaz tested positive for marijuana around the same time and eventually received a five-year suspension from the Nevada State Athletic Commission. The state agency pointed to previously failed drug tests, as well as other acts of misconduct, while Diaz objected vehemently to the decision.

Several other fighters and a few celebrities also expressed their belief that Diaz had been treated unfairly. His suspension was retroactively reduced in January 2016 to 18 months, but he then accepted a one-year ban from USADA in 2018 for having missed three out-of-competition drug tests within a 12-month period.

Having first fought professionally in 2001, Diaz (26-9) is regarded as an MMA pioneer. Over the years, he has taken on fighters like Frank Shamrock, Paul Daley, BJ Penn, Carlos Condit and Georges St. Pierre, and he won the inaugural welterweight championship with the now-defunct Strikeforce promotion in 2010. In his first fight with Lawler, at a UFC 47 event headlined by a long-awaited showdown between Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz, Diaz staged an entertaining brawl with his opponent, who was more highly touted at the time but who fell in a second-round knockout.

The 39-year-old Lawler (28-15) also began his pro career in 2001 and has been continuously active since then. A former UFC welterweight champion, he has lost his past four fights, most recently dropping a unanimous decision to Neil Magny at UFC Fight Night 175 in August 2020.

At UFC 266, to be staged at Las Vegas’s T-Mobile Arena, Diaz and Lawler will fight on the undercard. The main event will feature featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski (22-1) taking on Brian Ortega (15-1), and the co-main event will pit women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko (21-3) against Lauren Murphy (15-4).

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