Nate Diaz places Fedor, Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva on Greatest of all time list, then changes his mind and removes one

Nate Diaz has always been candid with his fans which has won him the affections of the audience. Diaz’s last bout in the UFC is bittersweet with the star going into it jaded after the UFC reportedly dismissed his attempts to get booked against Tony Ferguson, Vicente Luque, Michael Chandler and Dustin Poirier.

But as luck would have it, his opponent would go into it overweight, cause a scandal and a major card shuffle opening the path for Diaz to taste victory in the UFC cage again. But before all that Diaz had some interesting opinions to share.

Initially Diaz listed the ‘OG’ goats Anderson Silva, Georges St Pierre and Fedor Emelianenko as MMA GOATs.

He quickly modified the list and suggested that Silva doesn’t belong on it after all – due to his suspension for PED use.

He quickly recanted about Silva due to the fact that Silva too tested positive for PEDs in the past.

Diaz was also dismissive of the current top 5 Pound for Pound rankings due to the fact Usman was on top for so long – and he was knocked out by Diaz’ previous opponent whom he wobbled famously in round 5.

This is an interesting list. For one, there’s no mention of Khabib Nurmagomedov. This isn’t that big of a surprise when you factor in Diaz’ feud with Nurmagomedov, the slapping incident and comments he made during the week.

Diaz also isn’t a fan of UFC’s resident bad boy – Jon Jones. Jon Jones is one of the true veterans of MMA having reigned over the light heavyweight division for a number of years. Jones defeated Shogun Rua in 2011 in UFC 128 and became the youngest UFC champion in history at age 23. He’s since defended the title 13 times – well sort of – Jones was stripped twice for his behavior outside of the cage.

 “When I was on TUFr TV project, people like Royce Gracie, Fedor Emelianenko, BJ Penn were celestials for me,” Diaz said in an interview with ESPN.
“If I then went to the mall and met Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Leonard DiCaprio, any of the most famous actors you can imagine, and then saw Royce Gracie, Fedor Emelianenko or BJ Penn, I would not even pay attention to De Niro”

“These guys were at an unattainable height – they were for me the most famous people in the world. All these guys who have UFC gold think they are the best just because the organization said so, this huge machine named them the best, but I know who the real best is Royce Gracie, Fedor, BJ Penn. They are the people who got me into this business.”