Las Vegas, NV — Like many of us, UFC Vegas 59 welterweight Vicente Luque is eager to see Nate Diaz return to action next month.
Luque (21-8-1) had wanted a fight with Diaz himself, and has campaigned for just that in the past. But with one fight left on the Stockton native’s contract, the promotion opted to match him up with breakout star Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 279 instead.
“Khamzat stole my fight,” Luque jokingly told Cageside Press during the UFC Vegas 59 media day this week. “And finally we get to see Nate fighting again. I’m excited for it. I love to see Nate fight, I just am excited that he’s going to fight again. And Chimaev, man, he’s a tough guy, he showed that in his last fight.”
Luque sees Chimaev as the favorite in the match-up, “but man, Nate can make it complicated. If he can survive those first two rounds, he doesn’t get tired. Nate never gets tired. So he can bring the pressure and make it complicated against Chimaev. So I’m excited about that one for sure.”
As for his own career, Luque moved past a recent loss to Belal Muhammad fairly quickly, he said this week. “I moved past it right after it finished, in the sense that, I can’t do nothing about that fight. It is what it is. But a lot of lessons, and a lot of things I watched after. And mostly about myself.”
In terms of what Luque identified as areas to work on, “I just felt I wasn’t as aggressive as I am usually. I should have been more. Also props to Belal, he came in with the right strategy, did the right things. But I feel like I could have done some things different, and I didn’t.”
“I know I’m developing, I know I’m reaching that top level. It’s just some adjustments, and that’s what we did,” Luque added.
“I didn’t get here by mistake. I got here working my ass off, and fighting the way I fight. And that’s what I felt I missed a little bit in the last fight, and that’s what I want to get back.”
Watch the full UFC Vegas 59 media day interview with Vicente Luque above.
