CM Punk: Nate Diaz Is The ‘Nicest F*****g Guy’
When former WWE champion CM Punk surprisingly signed with the UFC after having zero professional or amateur MMA fights to his name in December 2014, the circumstances were understandably met with a large amount of criticism from both fighters and fans.
After all, Punk would receive an opportunity that countless longtime fighters had scratched, clawed, bled, and made sacrifices for, only to fall just short and be forced to find new careers after several wars in regional MMA bouts. Obviously Punk brings the recognition of his pro wrestling days, where he was one of the most recognizable names, and he brings an entire fanbase with him.
But fighter pay was and very much is one of the more debated topics in MMA, and when he was signed to fight sight unseen, the venom spewed from seemingly all angles at Punk. Countless haters mounted both online and in the media, and fighters both blasted the move and called to be the first to fight Punk in the Octagon, deeming it a huge easy payday.
One such fighter who blasted Punk’s signing was now-booming lightweight Nate Diaz, who at the time was returning to the Octagon from a yearlong layoff to face eventual champion Rafael dos Anjos in a one-sided loss at UFC on FOX 13 following a battle with the UFC over his contract. Diaz has since gone on to infamously throw down with featherweight champion Conor McGregor in a pair of bouts that ended up the biggest two events of the year thus far, but Punk still hasn’t fought yet.
He’s scheduled to take on 2-0 24-year-old welterweight Mickey Gall on the main card of September 10’s UFC 203 pay-per-view from Cleveland, Ohio, and the hate for Punk has not only ramped up again, it may be at an all-time high. However, it’s apparently not going to come from Diaz, as Punk recently detailed a scene to FOX Sports where Diaz actually approached him the weekend of July’s UFC 200 to squash any beef he had with him and actually apologize for his trash talk:
“UFC 200 I was doing an autograph signing and the guy I was signing the autograph for started like pointing behind me and I heard someone like yelling my name and I turned around and I was on a riser and Nate Diaz was on the ground and he was like ‘hey man come here.’ I was like, ‘What’s up?’ and he was the nicest (expletive) guy.
“I don’t know if he’ll get mad and this will ruin the image of Nate Diaz, but he was like, ‘Hey man, I talked some (expletive) before and I don’t know you and I’m sorry,’ and he’s like, ‘Gilbert (Melendez) and Ronda (Rousey) said that you’re a cool dude and they love you’ and I started looking around for the cameras. I was like, ‘all right.’ I thought that was super, super cool of him. Super nice guy.”
Diaz is well-known for his bad boy persona, and, as an outspoken voice for the treatment of fighters, he’s often at the center of many controversial topics surrounding the sport. Due to that fact, it wasn’t surprising to hear him blast Punk when he first came on board with the UFC. It is surprising to hear him seek Punk out to apologize.
Most aren’t giving the former WWE frontman much of a chance to beat Gall in his first-ever MMA bout next week, and that includes the bookmakers, who have rated Gall a significant 3-to-1 favorite. From the sound of things, at least he’ll have Diaz rooting for him when he steps into the Octagon in the UFC’s first event from Cleveland.
Whether he proves his doubters wrong and successfully crosses over into a much different fight sport is up to him.
