Former UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez is currently looking for his next opponent. Recently, he extended a challenge to former title challenger Nate Diaz, who also remains uncertain about his next career move.

But there apparently is a deep-rooted history between both fighters, which began at UFC 188 almost three years ago in Mexico City.

“We almost fought each other in Mexico, I was fighting his friend Gilbert Melendez,” Alvarez told ESNews (transcript via BJPenn.com). “I beat Gilbert and Nate was angry about it. And so me and Nate almost got into it in Mexico. For sure I’d like to get that match out.”

Alvarez explained that while he has no beef with elder Diaz brother Nick, the issue with Nate remains the same, just because of the slated matchup against Melendez.

“With Nate in Mexico, I went up to him and said ‘Hey why do you keep looking at me like this. I’ve been cool with you and your brother,’” Alvarez recalled. “So he put his head down and wouldn’t look at me but said ‘You’re fighting my friend so f--k you!’. So I kind of started laughing and said ‘Man I’m like 30 something, I’ve got kids and sh-t, this fight stuff is just business for me. So I laughed it off and then the UFC decided to come in and break us up.”

Alvarez is now using this angle to set-up a fight with Diaz.

“You know Nate always talks about keeping it real,” Alvarez said. “Well keeping it real I beat his friend up right in front of him while he sat cage side and he still didn’t do sh-t about it. So if he ever wants to come back, I’m right here! (Nate) can come get this!”

From his end, Diaz already turned down a previous offer to fight Alvarez, simply because Eddie already “got melted by the guy he beat up.”

“He just got plumbed by Conor and I just beat Conor’s ass,” Diaz told Ariel Helwani in a special MMA Hour episode in May 2017. “I just laughed at them, like ‘Get the f--k out of here, call me with some real sh-t.’”