White will be cageside Saturday night, watching one of the stars of his company perhaps make the final walk. He understands what a Diaz departure might mean for the UFC. When there's a cool guy who comes in and beats all these fools up and he becomes champion, that's when I want to fight in the UFC because he's actually a cool guy," Diaz said. "And he's not there now. But when he does [get there], you'll know it. Because I'm gonna say, 'What's up now, motherf---er?' Two weeks before UFC 279, the famously private Diaz allowed ESPN unprecedented access to his Northern California training camp. Diaz, 37, has finished McGregor, headlined Madison Square Garden in a fight for a mythical BMF title and been a part of some of the most significant pay-per-view events in UFC history. What's next, he said, will trump all of that.

Any of [the body shots], if he would have put more on it, would have dropped me, I would imagine. A couple of the head shots wobbled me, too." On Saturday, Diaz will fight up-and-coming star Khamzat Chimaev in the main event of UFC 279 in Las Vegas ( 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+ PPV). It will be the final fight on Diaz's UFC contract, as he is poised to do something that has never been done before in MMA: depart the UFC voluntarily at the height of his fame. I don't want to be in the UFC Hall of Fame," Diaz said. "I just like making fun of mother f-----ers who think they're tight for being in the Hall of Fame." Then, in August 2017, McGregor leveraged his stardom into a boxing match with Mayweather, which stands as the second biggest pay-per-view event of all time, just behind Mayweather's 2015 fight with Manny Pacquiao. Diaz said McGregor getting the Mayweather fight made him "f---ing hot," because it's one of the fights Diaz wanted, as someone who has been boxing since he was a kid and has sparred with the likes of boxing Hall of Famer Andre Ward. The second half is gonna be bigger than anything I've ever done and bigger than anything that's expected," Diaz said. "I have endless ideas."When he wanted to hit hard, it landed," Butcher says. "It landed. Some of those knees to the body, he was being nice because we don't have the pad on. But if he threw some of those, they would have dropped me for sure. That's enough for me," Diaz said, referring to his fight with Edwards. "If you get your ass whipped, you're the loser; I'm the winner. The only thing that happened in that fight with me and him was [the big fifth-round punch]. Nate Diaz has trained extensively in boxing, and a fight against Jake Paul has been rumored for Diaz after his UFC run ends. Marc Raimondi/ESPN

Before he accepted the Chimaev bout, Diaz told the UFC he wanted to fight heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou or middleweight champion Israel Adesanya because they're "cool." That "cool" factor will be something that informs Diaz's decision about a UFC return in the future. Diaz said his relationship with the UFC and White is still solid. There is no ill will. The one thing other fighters get wrong, Diaz said, is they don't understand that the UFC represents competition to them as much as their opponents in the cage. Diaz has always believed he was going up against the UFC to get the best possible deal for himself, in the same way the UFC would do that, too, from a business perspective. It doesn't have to be emotional or personal.

Despite the UFC's desire and attempts to make a Diaz vs. McGregor trilogy fight, it won't happen anytime soon. In fact, any UFC fights that involve Diaz aren't in the cards for the foreseeable future after this weekend. The list of actors whom Diaz would let beat up his character in a movie is short but headlined, he said, by Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. I've been waiting to do it for a long time, because I know he could do it," Perez says. "I'm for it all the way. He'll do really good. He'll be in the top two [in his division], I bet you. He could win a belt. When he's training just in boxing, he's tremendous. People talk about him all the time. We go to professional boxing gyms ... [and] he whips guys' butts."