After news broke that former UFC superstar Nate Diaz had turned himself in to the police, Jake Paul publicly called for his “homie” to be released.
Diaz is currently scheduled to fight Paul at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, TX on August 5th, but the incident has cast doubt on whether the bout will proceed as planned.
Early on Thursday morning, Nate surrendered himself to the New Orleans Police Department after an arrest warrant was issued on Monday.
According to court records reported by TMZ, he was charged with second-degree battery, and as a result, was held in jail. This charge carries a potential maximum sentence of eight years in prison and a fine of $2,000.
Despite Diaz being in police custody, Jake Paul made an appeal for his future opponent’s release on his Instagram stories. The popular YouTuber-turned-boxer shared a screenshot of a fan account of his promotion company. Most Value Productions, which had tweeted about Diaz turning himself in.
Paul then added his own message over the image:
‘Free big bro @natediaz209,’ was his message.
Subsequently, he shared a photograph that displayed only a small portion of his face. Along with a tear emoji positioned at the corner of his eye. In the accompanying caption, he wrote:
Jake Paul vs Nate Diaz is now in a pickle
According to Diaz’s representative Zach Rosenfield. The MMA free agent was released after he turned himself in to authorities at approximately 8:10 am ET.
Diaz had been wanted by the police following an incident where he choked out a man during a scuffle on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Footage of Nate knocking out boxer Rodney Peterson also went viral on social media.
The arrest warrant was issued two days after the video of the incident on Bourbon Street surfaced.
On Tuesday, Diaz’s lawyer Walter Becker claimed that Diaz acted in self-defense in response to the issued warrant. According to a statement through Nate’s spokesperson, Zach Rosenfield,
“Nate’s attorney Walter Becker can confirm that Nate has received word of the arrest warrant and Becker has been in contact with authorities in New Orleans.”
This is an alternate angle of the much-talked about street that happened on Friday in New Orleans. Paints a more complete picture of the madness going on. pic.twitter.com/TsvijWxTbo
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) April 25, 2023
Nate’s attorney looks forward to presenting all of the facts about this incident to the District Attorney. Which demonstrates that a trained fighter named Rodney Petersen aggressively pursued Nate intending to engage him and on doing so, Nate acted entirely in self-defense.”
Diaz was attending a Misfits Boxing event in New Orleans, where his colleague Chris Avila won against Paul Bamba. Video footage showed Nate wrapping his arm around Peterson’s neck. Resulting in Peterson losing consciousness on the street.
