Messing around with Nate Diaz isn’t the best idea, so says Jon Jones.
On Wednesday, news broke that Nate Diaz was already out of the reality show he was filming alongside Jones in Russia, with video surfacing of an insane brawl between some of the competitors on the show and Diaz and his team. Jake Shields, who was with Diaz as part of his team, said the situation escalated when a fighter tried to grab Diaz, and Jones agrees. Though Jones says Diaz was already a bit edgy before things popped off, he says it’s never a good idea to play-fight with a Diaz brother.
“We had one of our young fighters, a guy named Zalik, he was playing with Nate,” Jones told Red Corner MMA. “He wanted to play-fight with Nate. Nate kind of came in a little bit on edge. I think he had some previous beef with some Russian fighters, so he was a little bit on edge when he got here. Play-fighting with Nate was not the best idea. It became serious right away, and we had to replace Nate.”
Diaz did have a long-standing feud with Khabib Nurmagomedov, even allegedly slapping the lightweight GOAT at one point. However, Nurmagomedov has been out of MMA for years and and bad blood seemed to have been forgotten. Perhaps not, though, as Shields suggested on his podcast that their feud played a role in the brawl.
For Jones, that could be the case, but the former UFC light heavyweight champion also said that this experience is unlike anyone he’s ever had in his long MMA career, with a lot more aggression and hostility than your standard MMA gym.
“I’ve been around the Bushido spirit for a long time, that martial arts spirit where everybody has a certain degree of, kind of certain rules you don’t cross,” Jones said. “Like a martial arts spirit and everything. I don’t think there’s a lot of that here. Some guys are like warriors and some guys are really just kind of street fighters. There’s insults, there’s weapons, this show — there’s nothing like it. There’s really nothing like it.”
MMA Fighting – All Posts
