Nate Diaz For starters, a Nate Diaz story. It might even be my favorite Diaz story, and it might also have some relevance to his win over Conor McGregor at UFC 196 on Saturday night. It was the fall of 2006, and Diaz had just been offered his first title shot. This was in the WEC, the old WEC, right before the UFC’s parent company bought it and began to reshape it before ultimately shutting it down. They wanted him to fight Hermes Franca, the lightweight champ, who at the time had a little more than 20 pro fights, including UFC wins over guys such as Caol Uno and Jamie Varner.