Things are a-changing in the 209, can you smell it? Nate Diaz, the younger Diaz brother and the one who seems to take his fighting career a bit more seriously at times, has made a few changes in his camp. Nate Diaz has apparently switched managers after some of the debacle that we saw involving his brother Nick at UFC 158 and has gone with Mike Kogan instead. Kogan was the long-time manager of Royce Gracie and former manager of K-1 USA before he switched his attention to managing more fighters.
Since then, Kogan has had a lot of big wins in the managerial department, including an early big win of King Mo Lawal.
It is unclear how strained the relationship with Cesar Gracie is at the moment, but speculation is that Nate Diaz will continue training with the Cesar Gracie camp and has just switched managers. We aren’t even sure of much of the context of it, but we do know that Dana White has been applying pressure on the boys from the 209, publicly stating his disdain for Cesar Gracie and his “games.” The last time we saw Dana White speak out against a manager was Golden Glory’s Bas Boon, which helped get the ball rolling on Alistair Overeem, Siyar Bahazurda and a few others leaving Golden Glory.