A former MMA champion Josh Thomson is claiming Nate Diaz turned down hush money from the UFC to keep his failed drug test quiet.
Thomson (22-9 MMA) is making the claim that Diaz was offered money from the UFC to keep his failed drug test from jeopardizing his fight with Jorge Masvidal at UFC 244.
Nate Diaz (21-13 MMA) met up with Jorge Masvidal (35-17 MMA) in November of 2019 at UFC 244. The result was Diaz losing to ‘Gamebred’ via TKO in the welterweight bout and in the process Masvidal being crowned the BMF champion.
It was recently in the news that Mark Hunt lost his lawsuit against the UFC, Dana White and Brock Lesnar. Hunt was accusing the promotion of knowing Lesnar was using PED’s ahead of their UFC 200 fight.
Josh Thomson sat down on the ‘Weighing In’ podcast with John McCarthy and was asked if he believed the UFC was aware of Lesnar’s drug use before his matchup with Mark Hunt, to which Thomson replied:
“I look at it this way, this is the thing. Look what they were trying to do with Nate Diaz. He tested positive, and they were like, ‘You know what, we’ll get it all sorted out after.’ And Nate said, ‘F**k you, we’ll get it sorted out now.’ That means that they knew that Nate tested, and they were still gonna let him fight… So I would not say that they have not tried to do that, or would not do it.”
Continuing, ‘The Punk’, doubled down saying (h/t MMANews):
“When I’m looking at (Lesnar), I mean I’m just thinking to myself that this was early in USADA. I don’t know. I don’t wanna say that they knew, but I wanna say that the history – which I can only give you that case – is that they tried to have Nate still fight, and ‘We’ll deal with it after.’… I know people in Nate’s camp that said they even tried to offer money. They tried to like, ‘We’ll take care of it all afterwards, no big deal. It’s probably just a misunderstanding.’”
Nate Diaz was indeed flagged by USADA in October of 2019, ahead of UFC 244, for a failed test, which actually ended up being due to tainted supplements used by the fighter. According to Thomson, the UFC were prepared to keep the results of the testing hidden until after the fight. Diaz would have none of it and insisted they address the situation immediately.
What do you think of Thomson’s claim that the UFC has the power to ‘sort out’ failed drug tests, and even bribe fighters to keep things quiet so the ‘show can go on’?
Share your thoughts in the comment section PENN Nation!
