Nate Diaz hilariously explains why he always throws water bottles at opponents: ‘I stay hydrated’
Nate Diaz promises he’s not looking for trouble but if anybody starts some static with him, they might want to duck and cover because a bottle of water might come zooming at them sooner than later.
There are more than a few videos out there showing Diaz launching a bottle of water at somebody — most famously in a melee with Conor McGregor ahead of their rematch back in 2016. As he was leaving the press conference with McGregor shouting at him, Diaz tossed a bottle of water at the Irish superstar and that led to more bottles and even full cans of energy drinks being launched across the room.
Diaz also got into a water bottle tossing incident with members of Islam Makhachev’s team backstage this past December ahead of a UFC press conference in Las Vegas. But Diaz says he’s rarely the aggressor because those altercations usually start with somebody talking smack to him and then he’ll respond with a bottle of water.
“I was watching the old press conference with Jake Paul [and he said] ‘he’s always choking somebody or throwing a bottle at them.’ I’m a counter fighter, motherf*cker,” Diaz said on the HJR podcast. “If you’re f*cking with me like ‘f*ck you bitch’ and I’m standing there with a bottle, [I’ll throw it] like shut up, bitch. This ain’t going to hurt you.”
According to Diaz, the bottle of water is always his first line of defense because there’s rarely a time when he doesn’t have one nearby. With such easy access, Diaz finds the bottle of water as the easiest way to get somebody’s attention.
“Let me tell you something, you see how I’ve got this bottle [of water]? I stay hydrated,” Diaz said. “I always have water on me, no matter where I’m at. You should see next to my bed in my room, I’ve got f*cking 15 waters from every night. Then someone starts popping off, [I throw the bottle] like shut up, bitch.”
Diaz claimed more often than not, the bottle of water getting thrown is usually in response to somebody shouting insults at him from a distance.
The one-time UFC title challenger says chucking a bottle of water at them is an easy way to find out if they actually want to start some trouble with him or if they’re all talk.
“Now I tagged you, balls in your court,” Diaz said. “What are you going to do about it? And that [bottle of water] ain’t going to hurt nobody.”
Of course, Diaz’s willingness to mix it up with anybody at any time has come back to bite him in the bank account.
He revealed during the same interview that an altercation with a Logan Paul lookalike — later identified as Rodney Peterson — cost him a hefty sum of money after he faced a lawsuit over the incident. While Diaz was cleared of all criminal charges, Peterson still sued him after video showed the veteran UFC fighter choking him out during an incident in New Orleans.
Diaz says he ultimately settled the lawsuit and paid Peterson rather than continuing the fight in court, which would have cost him even more money.
“He did sue me,” Diaz said. “I was winning but it was going to just go forever and I was going to pay more in lawyer fees. So I just ended up paying him $18,000 because my lawyer bills were up to $17,000. So it cost me like $30,000. I get sued by everybody. I guarantee you I got the record.”