Nate Diaz thinks Islam Makhachev is a very lucky man after he retained his lightweight title with a unanimous decision win over Alexander Volkanovski.
‘The Great’ was hoping to follow in the footsteps of Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes and Henry Cejudo by becoming a dual-weight champion at UFC 284.
However, the odds were stacked against him in Perth as he faced a much bigger opponent who eased by Charles Oliveira at UFC 280 in October to win the vacant 155lb belt.
Volkanovski fought a great fight, dropped his opponent several times and almost found a finish at the end of the fifth and final round, but it wasn’t enough.
Makhachev scored knockdowns of his own, had big success with his wrestling and even cut his opponent before their supremely close fight went to the judge’s scorecards.
UFC legend Nate Diaz was convinced that Volkanovski had done enough to secure a historic win in front of his fellow Australians and tweeted him a congratulatory message before the scorecards had been read out.
A few minutes later, he returned to social media to express his surprise at the result going in Makhachev’s favour (48-47, 48-47 and 49-46) and claimed he got ‘whooped’ by the UFC’s pound-for-pound best fighter.
Diaz wrote: “Yeah right Islam got his a** whooped”
The MMA icon who recently left the UFC wasn’t the only person who thought Volkanovski was hard done by as fans watching UFC 284 at the RAC Arena booed the decision and the word ‘robbery’ began to trend on Twitter.
However, Volkanovski kept it classy during his post-fight interview with Michael Bisping as he asked the fans to applaud his opponent before vowing to return to make another run at the lightweight title in the future.
The 33-year-old said: “Just because I pulled up short tonight, that doesn’t change a thing.
“I’m a man of my word. I’ll be back in the lightweight division, but for now, let me go settle this featherweight decision. Congrats to Yair [Rodriguez], let’s go!”
Yair Rodriguez picked up the interim featherweight title with a second-round submission win over Josh Emmett in the UFC 284 co-main event.
He’ll now face Volkanovski in a unification fight before the Aussie looks to avenge his loss to Makhachev who is just the second man – after Corey Nelson – to get the better of him in MMA
