Nate Diaz believes the rousing success of UFC 196 earlier this month should officially put UFC President Dana White’s insistence he’s “not a needle-mover” to rest once and for all.
In July 2014, White blasted Diaz (19-10 MMA, 14-8 UFC), who at the time was disgruntled with his contract, on a skid in the octagon and on the outs with UFC management, for his lack of drawing power.
“He seems popular when you’re looking on (expletive) Twitter and some website,” White said nearly two years ago. “But the numbers, the real numbers, tell the truth. We know who moves needles and who doesn’t move needles. If Nate Diaz was a massive needle-mover, we’d have called him (to fight). He’d be on the phone, we’d be figuring it out and we’d work it out. He doesn’t move the needle.”
Diaz gives McGregor credit for UFC 196's success. However, he also takes credit for himself, and said he was convinced it would happen all along if given the right opportunity.
“I knew that I brought the numbers,” Diaz told MMAjunkie. “When I fought on FOX it was like 3, 4, 5 million viewers every time I fight and headline these FOX shows. That’s where my argument was in the first place. I was like, ‘I see what’s going on here.’ So when I said they were trying to hold me back and trying to say that I wasn’t moving the needles or whatever, I already knew that. I knew the pay-per-view numbers were going to be huge.
“My point was proven. He brings a big following and he’s got good numbers, too, but that’s why I was saying after my fight with (Michael) Johnson, I was like, ‘You want to see a fight?’ No one pays attention. That’s why I had to demand that (expletive) and express it and come off the way I did, so I could try to get a fight. Now they can’t deny it, the whole needle-moving thing.”
LINK: Not a needle-mover? Nate Diaz says UFC 196's success proved Dana White wrong