Anthony Pettis calls out Al Iaquinta since Nate Diaz is ‘out indefinitely’

After finally picking up a big win at UFC 226, Anthony Pettis has firmly reestablished himself at lightweight. The former WEC and UFC champ (21-7, 8-6 UFC) is looking for a money fight at 155 after submitting Michael Chiesa, and had a Diaz brother in mind apparently. But according to Pettis, he was told that’s not a thing. So he called out a guy that just challenged for the lightweight title instead - Al Iaquinta.

Iaquinta (13-4-1, 8-3 UFC) was scheduled to face Paul Felder at UFC 223 but after a bunch of changes, he instead took on Khabib Nurmagomedov for the 155-pound title. He dropped a decision but made a good showing of himself. Lately though he has been more combative with the UFC.

Somewhat surprisingly, Iaquinta hasn’t responded to Pettis publicly as of yet.

As for Nate Diaz, that’s a whole other story. The last we heard about him, he was involved in a brawl at a BJJ event last month. He was briefly tied to a bout with Georges St-Pierre (at least Dana White said he was), but that obviously never came to fruition. Conor McGregor’s coach would like his fighter’s next bout to be the trilogy fight with Diaz, but there’s nothing new on that either.

So for now, we’ll have to wait and see if Iaquinta responds, or if the UFC wants to go in a different direction with Pettis, who currently holds the number eight contender ranking at lightweight.