Nate Diaz went into his brother Nick’s five-year suspension from the UFC and MMA after testing positive for marijuana. 

The Diaz brothers are iconic in MMA and Nick as the older brother came into UFC on two occasions after winning gold in WEC and Strikeforce’s Welterweight divisions respectively. 

His second run saw him defeat BJ Penn in October 2011 as part of his chase of Georges St-Pierre, losing to stand-in Carlos Condit for the Interim Welterweight title and testing positive for marijuana, serving a year-long suspension before fighting GSP for the Welterweight title and losing. 

He then fought Anderson Silva at middleweight to mark the beginning of a three-fight deal, losing again, but Silva had tested positive for steroids and the result was overturned to a no-contest with him also suspended for a year. But Diaz tested positive for marijuana once more, and the Nevada State Athletic Commission handed down a five-year suspension. 

When asked by Theo Von whether he tried to get his brother back into the promotion, Nate said that he didn’t and didn’t feel like he was in a position to. 

“No, I didn’t,” he answered. “I never even thought about even how would I get him in? I never even thought about it. It was like when the cops take you to jail and I don’t want you to go to jail, I know I can’t get you out. I ain’t talking to the cops. So that’s probably the situation, I didn’t even think about it. What was I going to do?”

Von asked him whether it was a decision that could have been made by UFC, to which he clarified that the decision-making had nothing to do with the promotion. “It wasn’t the UFC at all. I think it was the commission.”

Nick Diaz did return to UFC in 2021 against Robbie Lawler, verbally submitting to lose via TKO and conclude his MMA career with a record of 26-10 (2 NC).