Nate Diaz claims that Matt Brown fight at UFC 189 was booked prematurely

Nothing ever comes easy when Nate Diaz is involved.

We were overjoyed with the work of Joe Silva and Sean Shelby as the pair of UFC matchmakers were outdoing themselves as they put together one of the fight cards of the year. Last week we saw the addition of Gunnar Nelson v John Hathaway, Dennis Bermudez v Jeremy Stephens, Alex Garcia v Mike Swick and Brandon Thatch v John Howard to July's UFC 189 event. They are four pretty damn impressive fights to go along with the main and co-main events which will see our very own Conor McGregor look to bring the first UFC title back to Ireland when he takes on featherweight champion Jose Aldo and Robbie Lawler attempt to defend his welterweight belt against the always dangerous Rory MacDonald. But possibly the most thrilling match-up of all was announced last night when the UFC revealed that TUF 5 vet Nate Diaz was returning to welterweight for a scrap with Matt Brown. These lads are two of the toughest fighters ever to wrap their hands and would have done no harm as the UFC look to do record numbers at the box office. But Diaz loves throwing a wrench in the promotion's plans and the Stockton fighter revealed just hours after the UFC's announcement that the Brown fight was booked without his knowledge and that he thought he was fighting former lightweight champion Anthony Pettis.

Nah I'm fighting Pettis — Nathan Diaz (@NateDiaz209) April 9, 2015

MMAFighting contacted Diaz on the above tweet and he explained

"We were supposed to meet with the UFC next Monday to get my next fight figured out but then they busted out the Matt Brown fight. I thought I was fighting Anthony Pettis next. He's trying to fight me and I'm trying to fight him.

"I'm open to the Brown fight -- I said I wanted to fight him last year -- but I don't like that they made the fight official before we ever negotiated or agreed to it."

There is no confirmation from the UFC on the matter as of yet but watch this space closely. The official fight card right now looks like this.

• Champ Jose Aldo vs. Conor McGregor – for featherweight title
• Champ Robbie Lawler vs. Rory MacDonald – for welterweight title
• Dennis Bermudez vs. Jeremy Stephens
• John Hathaway vs. Gunnar Nelson
• Brandon Thatch vs. John Howard
• Alex Garcia vs. Mike Swick
• Matt Brown vs. Nate Diaz ??