After Meeting Nate Diaz, Des Moines Marty Margolis Can't Help But Consider Transitioning From Wrestling To MMA.
For the last six years, two of the most elusive fighters in the game have been the Diaz brothers. It was starting to seem like the only place you could go to see Nick or Nate Diaz was Stockton, California or Des Moines, Iowa.
You read that right.
While Nate has fought semi-regularly in recent years, Nick has remained on the sidelines. And now with Nick back, it’s the first time since 2015 that both Diaz brothers were active.
The “will they, won’t they” has been equal parts frustrating and intriguing, but while they’ve been “between fights,” Marty Margolis of Grand View University wrestling was doing his thing, kicking back and hanging out with Nate Diaz, Des Moines style.
“I think Diaz was running a clinic in Ankeny, like ten minutes outside of Des Moines,” Margolis said. “Nick Maximov, he wrestled at Clackamas. I wrestled at Clackamas before I transferred to Grand View. He was there a year before I was there so we didn’t wrestle on a team together, but we keep in touch, we know him. He’s a good supporter of the program. I’ve trained with him a little bit. He let me know they were coming to town to Des Moines. He asked me places to go and stuff like that and told me to come on downtown.”
After about a half a second of debate as to whether or not to go downtown, Margolis met up with Maximov and, sure enough, the most expected thing of all-time happened: Margolis found himself face to face with one of the biggest stars in UFC history.
“To be honest, I didn’t really know Diaz was going to be there,” Margolis said. “Nick let me know that he was down there, so we met up and hanging out and I actually didn’t see Diaz at first. I said what’s up to Nick and he introduced me to some of his buddies and we were hanging out and then I look and Nate Diaz is right there.”
Could Marty Margolis be a Nick Diaz Army soldier in the making? He still has some wrestling eligibility left, so it’s tough to say, but coming from a combat sports family, it just may be in the cards.
“We watch the fights every weekend,” Margolis said. “I come from a combat sports family. My grandpa’s a boxer, my uncle’s a black belt in BJJ, so yeah, it’s a world I’m familiar with.”
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