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People love Nick Diaz. Sure, there might be a few detractors here and there, but that is largely a measurable objective fact.

If you don't think so, consider that he's an athlete who has not been successful in his chosen field since 2011 and has not competed in that field since 2015, yet he remains one of its most hotly discussed properties regardless.

Whether he's showing up on a podcast you've probably never heard of or smoking marijuana out of a tiny MMA glove, nobody in the business has gotten more love for doing less successful fighting over the past number of years. Even brother Nate, a superstar in his own right after feuding with Conor McGregor, has shown more in-cage merit on his way to enjoying similar popularity.

Much of it has to do with the attitude Diaz possesses. All snarling ferocity and middle fingers come fight time, he's about as close to a warrior poet as MMA has. When he's not beating someone down into the ground in the cage, he's equal parts streetwise philosophy and weirdly compelling sensitivity, talking about the hardened streets of Stockton, California, and going through some shocking experiences there.

It's that dichotomy, that of the caged animal and the introvert forced outward, that engages people so viscerally. Plenty of mixed martial artists are fairly interesting, but Diaz is entirely compelling.

Yet while the world sees him as a special attraction who plays by his own rules, anxiously awaiting his return to the cage, the people who matter the most are missing the point. The UFC, tasked with finding him opponents, appears utterly lost as to how to use one of its greatest stars.

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Reports came out recently that Diaz has been offered a series of fights since the end of his most recent NAC suspension, and he'd turned them all down. Names included Robbie Lawler, Tyron Woodley and Demian Maia, and people were generally receptive to the idea of having their beloved elder Diaz back in the fray.

The only problem is that, save for perhaps Lawler, those offers are terrible through the lens that Diaz sees the world.

Woodley is not yet a moneymaker, a guy who can't seem to make up his mind about whether he wants money fights, title defenses or to become a martyr in the name of fair treatment of athletes. People seem to not like him, but he hasn't found the best way to separate them from their dollars in the spirit of that distaste. For Diaz, he'd be left trying to move units more or less on his own, and at the end of the promotional effort, he'd be subjected to a long, boring wrestling match that he couldn't win on his best day.

Why would he do that? And before you talk about titles, don't.

Diaz is roughly as interested in a UFC title as George Sullivan is in following USADA rules. He wants to get rich by fighting as little as possible after 15 years of being poor by fighting as much as possible, and the notion that being champion will make that dream come true is as silly as it is misguided.

Maia is a curious offering, one that would be intriguing based purely on his style. Diaz is the owner of unheralded jiu-jitsu, but Maia is, well, Maia. He's functionally claimed the art as his own, using it so perfectly that he's been on an uninterrupted trudge to the title with a rudimentary trip-to-back-take-to-choke series that every white belt on Earth knows after six months' training.

The thing is, Maia does it with a smoothness and efficiency that makes it unstoppable. Guys know it's coming, they prep for it and they succumb to it in a few minutes anyway.

Could Diaz stop it? Maybe, but it doesn't matter because Diaz isn't taking that fight.

He's not interested in fighting a polite, respectful Brazilian who shares a great passion for his beloved Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And only people who truly love the game are going to pay money to see that battle unfold given the technical appreciation required to watch Maia maul a person.

It all indicates that the UFC is missing the point with its attempts to book Diaz. It's hard to say what might tickle his fancy enough to get him back in the cage—rematches with Georges St-Pierre or Anderson Silva seem like good possibilities—but it's clear he's not about to do it for an opponent who doesn't represent precisely what he wants.

It's too bad for those waiting to see his unique brand of fury back in the Octagon because he’s as fun as anyone in the business when it's time to throw down. On the other hand, it's the exact type of against-the-grain thinking and action that's made him so popular in the first place.