Nate Diaz has been campaigning for a UFC comeback to close out his “underrated” legacy.

The 40 year-old welterweight has not competed since his submission win over Tony Ferguson at UFC 279 roughly three years back, but managed to secure boxing fights against Jake Paul and Jorge Masvidal. Unfortunately, his performances outside of UFC may have done more harm than good ahead of his most recent callouts.

That’s according to longtime rival Josh Thomson, who stopped Diaz at UFC on FOX 7.

“He is 40 or almost 40, so, I mean buddy, you’re stuck fighting old people like me,” Thomson said on his Weighing In podcast. “I don’t have anything against Nate. I like him a lot, man. I think he’s great for the sport. I think he’s great for this industry, period. The MMA industry, the boxing industry, all of that, I think he’s great. He wants to try to get back in the UFC. So when he left and fought Jake Paul, he kind of shot himself in the foot, you know, not being able to get that win. Had he got that win, there might have been a different possibility. And then getting the Masvidal win didn’t really do much for him either.”

Diaz (29-13) lost to Paul in Aug. 2023 and narrowly edged Masvidal last summer.

“So Masvidal is in the good graces of the UFC, still has fights under his belt,” Thomson continued. “He could possibly still come back and fight for them. Nate is not in the good graces right now with them. So I don’t know, maybe they’ll get something settled up. Maybe he will come back, he will not come back at 155. So the Max [Holloway] situation at 155 is not gonna happen. I don’t think he beats anyone. There’s some fights that I wouldn’t mind seeing. Are they at the 155 fights? Are they the 170s? Because you’re thinking he’s gonna have to make 170. You can have him fight Leon [Edwards] again, you know; I mean, like somewhere in that mix there.”

That’s assuming Diaz is no longer “hard to deal with.”