Nate Diaz is about to return to MMA in opposition to Mike Perry on Could 16 on a Most Helpful Promotions card headlined by Ronda Rousey vs Gina Carano, which can stream stay on Netflix because the platform’s first MMA occasion. The information was first reported by Andreas Hale.
Nate Diaz vs. Mike Perry on Netflix
Diaz vs Perry provides to the cardboard with a fan favourite fashion lineup constructed round names that resonate with long-time viewers. Diaz left the UFC after submitting Tony Ferguson at UFC 279 in September 2022, closing out a 15-year run with the promotion that included his breakthrough win over Conor McGregor and an extended tenure as one of many sport’s most talked-about personalities.
Since then, Diaz has stepped into boxing, together with a crossover bout with Jake Paul, and has repeatedly indicated he needed “actual motion” once more, just lately telling followers he was opponents like McGregor, Dustin Poirier, and Perry as choices for a return. Social clips in early 2026 confirmed Diaz speaking up a comeback and claiming he helped create the “BMF” identification within the UFC, hinting {that a} transfer again to MMA was on the horizon.
Perry, for his half, has reinvented himself in bare-knuckle boxing since leaving the UFC in 2021, the place he was a crowd-pleasing welterweight with a status for ahead strain and willingness to brawl. After signing with BKFC, he picked up headline wins over Julian Lane and Michael “Venom” Web page that gave his post-UFC profession recent momentum and turned him into one of many promotion’s primary points of interest.
Again in 2022, Perry overtly referred to as for a combat with Diaz after each males left the UFC, framing the matchup because the sort of wild, action-heavy contest followers would anticipate from their types. On-line boards picked up the thought once more in 2025 when discuss of a possible boxing match between the 2 surfaced, with followers debating whether or not Diaz’s quantity and sturdiness would rise up in opposition to Perry’s extra compact punching in a hoop. Bringing the conflict to the cage somewhat than a boxing ring provides one other layer: Diaz’s jiu-jitsu is way extra related in MMA, whereas Perry’s bare-knuckle kind suggests he’s comfy in close-quarters exchanges that would translate effectively to smaller gloves.
Rousey vs Carano
Most Helpful Promotions, owned by Jake Paul, has already confirmed that its first totally branded MMA present will happen on the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, on Could 16, with Rousey vs Carano topping the invoice and your entire card airing stay to Netflix subscribers at no further price.
Netflix describes the present as its debut MMA broadcast after earlier work with MVP on boxing occasions, together with the crossover Paul vs Mike Tyson card. Rousey’s return alone would have been sufficient to dominate headlines. The previous UFC bantamweight champion has not competed in MMA since her loss to Amanda Nunes at UFC 207 in December 2016, making this her first combat in virtually a decade.
Throughout her prime, Rousey turned the UFC’s first feminine champion and a key determine in getting girls’s MMA into the promotion in 2013, shortly constructing a status for speedy armbar finishes and mainstream crossover attraction. Carano, in the meantime, has been away even longer; she final fought professionally in 2009, when Cris Cyborg stopped her in a Strikeforce featherweight title bout that marked one of many early high-profile girls’s primary occasions within the sport.
Beneath the headliner, MVP has already confirmed a minimum of one heavyweight showcase: former UFC champion Francis Ngannou will face UFC veteran Philipe Lins on the identical card on the Intuit Dome. Ngannou, who left the UFC in 2023 to pursue boxing and extra versatile fight sports activities offers, will re-enter the cage below the MVP–Netflix banner, whereas Lins, a former PFL heavyweight match champion and UFC fighter, will get a high-profile platform on a worldwide streaming stage.
For Diaz and Perry, it’s a probability to plug into that highlight and settle a matchup followers have been speaking about for years, whereas Netflix and MVP gauge whether or not this type of marquee-driven MMA can turn out to be a recurring a part of the streaming period.
