Nate Diaz rejects claims he’s set to fight Dustin Poirier in ‘six weeks’

The pair had verbally agreed to fight one another, with Poirier now suggesting a contract is all but signed

Nate Diaz has denied Dustin Poirier’s claim that the pair are set to fight in “less than six weeks”.

Former interim UFC lightweight champion Poirier and Diaz were set to go head-to-head in late 2019, but the bout fell through.

Following Poirier’s submission loss to Charles Oliveira while challenging for the lightweight title in December, he and Diaz verbally agreed to finally fight one another, and the “Diamond” hinted this week that the contest could be announced soon.

“Something that got the flame going is, a couple of days ago, I got a phone call,” Poirier told Teddy Atlas.

“I can’t talk about it yet, but it’s a very short-notice thing and something I hate to do is stack things against myself and take a fight on short notice.

“I’ve already looked myself in the mirror, spoke to my wife, my boxing coach, [head coach] Mike Brown, and they’re behind me if I decide to take this fight.

“It is Nate Diaz. I’m not going to say what card, or a date or whatever, but he got on Twitter talking and everybody is a tough guy on the internet.

“He said something like, ‘Let’s do it,’ and I said, ‘Okay, I’ll fight you this month.’ I don’t know if you saw this. Now we’re waiting on him!”

Poirier added that the fight with his fellow American would come to fruition in “less than six weeks, for sure”.

Diaz last fought in June when he was outpointed by Leon Edwards in a welterweight contest, and the Californian took to Twitter to dismiss Poirier’s suggestions that a bout between the pair is on the verge of being signed.

“I just talked to the UFC, I said wassup with the Dustin Poirier fight, I wanna fight asap,” Diaz wrote.

“But they said ‘Dustin sucks’ and they don’t want it, sorry. Dustin you suck, hope to fight asap tho, let’s do this. P.S. Oliveira you suck too.”

It is unclear whether Poirier would move up to welterweight to fight Diaz, or whether the latter would drop down to lightweight – where he has previously competed.