Matt Brown: 'Fight against Nate Diaz isn't happening.'

Here's another chapter of the Matt Brown-Nate Diaz story: According to Brown's official Twitter, their fight won't happen at UFC 189.

The UFC formally announced the bout last Wednesday, but shortly after, Diaz stated via his Twitter, he wants to fight former lightweight champion Anthony Pettis instead. Brown then posted a picture of a signed bout agreement on his Instagram, but later removed it.

Fight against @NateDiaz209 isn't happening. I'll update you guys soon as I get the word on opponent/date/ thanks for the support as always!

— Matt Brown (@IamTheImmortal) April 15, 2015

On Monday, Diaz appeared on Ariel Helwani's The MMA Hour and explained that he was never asked by the UFC to take the fight, he was simply told to do so and doesn't like that at all:

"It was just kind of like, ‘you're fighting.' Well then I guess I'm fighting. It's all good, it's in the past, it already happened. I just, I'm not into being tricked into fighting anymore. I think I should have a little more say. I think I'm older now, and like I said, if I'm going to fight, I think it should be worth my while, not just because they say I'm fighting and now I'm fighting. [...] If someone got a hold of me, that'd be great," Diaz added. "If not, it's all good too. I don't need to fight. Like I said, I don't need to fight my life away. I'm all good with not fighting, so if they want to work that out, that'd be great. If not, I'll be watching and tuning into the fights and making sure everything is going good and taking some time off relaxing."

Diaz' relationship with the UFC is a bit messy, to say the least. He was inactive for the bulk of 2014 due to a contract dispute with the organization and was temporarily removed from the UFC rankings. In December, he finally returned for a fight against now-lightweight titleholder Rafael dos Anjos that he lost.

The UFC has not commented on the cancellation of the Brown-Diaz fight so stay tuned, there could be updates.