Can UFC President Dana White Lure Nick Diaz Out of Retirement by Offering Him Lyoto Machida?

One thing is certain in the UFC middleweight division: former champion Anderson Silva has a rematch lined up with the man that dethroned him, Chris Weidman.

Where things go beyond that is anybody’s best guess.

UFC president Dana White isn’t standing pat, however. After revealing to UFC Tonight this week that he wanted to match up Vitor Belfort and Lyoto Machida at middleweight as the UFC 167: St-Pierre vs. Hendricks co-main event in November, the company president has added a twist to the situation.

While Machida’s camp warmed to the Belfort fight, Belfort has been reluctant to take any non-title fight in the middleweight division. So White has apparently turned to currently retired welterweight Nick Diaz as a potential opponent for Machida.

“I talked to Diaz today, and I made him an offer, so we’ll see what happens,” White said during a special Q&A session at Boston’s Barrio Cantina on Wednesday night, according to a report by MMAJunkie.com. “He had been talking about going to 185 pounds. Machida has been talking about going to 185 pounds. So we wanted to see if he wanted to fight Machida at 185.”

The question and answer session was part of UFC Homecoming, a fundraising event to benefit The Shawn Thornton Foundation.

Diaz’s camp didn’t have an immediate answer for White, and there has been no word yet from Machida’s camp.

Machida is coming off of a disappointing unanimous decision loss to Phil Davis at UFC 163.

Diaz indicated that he was retired after losing to UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre at UFC 158 in March, unless a rematch was in the offing.

But can Dana White lure him out of retirement by dangling a middleweight bout with Machida in front of him?

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