The only surprising thing about Nate Diaz being removed from the official UFC rankings is that it's taken this long for it to happen.
While the UFC rankings are a laughing stock for the most part, they do hold some importance in terms of getting big fights and earning larger paycheques.
There were a couple of big movers following UFC St. Petersburg on Saturday, with Alistair Overeem's first-round knockout over Aleksei Oleinik earning him a jump up to No. 6 in the heavyweight rankings while both Roxanne Modaferi, Islam Makhachev and Shamil Abdurakhimov also moved up thanks to their wins in Russia.
The most interesting change to the rankings, however, had nothing to do with the St. Petersburg card as Nate Diaz was removed from the lightweight rankings entirely.
https://twitter.com/NateDiaz209/status/1110217822628646912
While no explanation was given for Diaz's sudden absence, it's generally agreed that his inactivity is the reason for being removed from the top 15 at 155lbs.
Diaz has not fought since his 2016 defeat to Conor McGregor, meaning that his time out of the Octagon is approaching 1,000 days.
The Stockton veteran came close to a return last November, when he was scheduled to fight Dustin Poirier in the co-main event of UFC 230 but the bout never came to fruition after Poirier sustained an injury in training.
Diaz has continued to mock Poirier, as well as McGregor and UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, on social media but UFC President Dana White insists that neither Diaz nor his older brother Nick are willing to accept fights that have been offered to them.
