Considering that many of the questions in circulation at Dana White media scrums over the past few months were largely focused on Nate Diaz's potential return to the UFC, fans and pundits alike were surprised to find that it is older brother Nick Diaz who has penned a new deal with the UFC.

The former welterweight title challenger came out of retirement on Thursday and signed a three-fight contract extension with the intention of returning to the octagon in 2015. Diaz has been away from the octagon since his loss to Georges St-Pierre back in March 2013.

Now that he is back in the fold, Diaz is focused on earning a title shot and even suggested an interesting name for his first fight back in the organization.

"I'd be interested in fighting [Anderson Silva] and anything that's going to do well," Diaz told UFC.com. "As far as Anderson Silva, I think that would be a great fight for people to see because he has my type of style.

"I'd like to fight for the title," Diaz added. "I think that would be a big deal and worth fighting for. I want fights that will lead to a title fight. Whoever is in line and whoever has the title, that's who I'm going to be fighting".

While Diaz has been away from the octagon for over 12 months, he suggests that his time in semi-retirement was not wasted and that he was "getting things done."

"It was hard times for a little bit, but people act like I've been doing nothing. I've been getting some things done. Just because I'm not getting punched around every day doesn't mean I'm not focused on what I'm doing. Now, here we are."

Diaz already holds a win over Robbie Lawler, who is in the main event of UFC on FOX 12 this weekend against Matt Brown in a fight that will determine the next No. 1 contender for the welterweight title. That win over Lawler took place a decade ago at UFC 47, which is why Diaz holds a grudge against fighters such as Hendricks who show no respect for his era of fighting.

"You got people running around - you got Johny Hendricks running his mouth," Diaz said. "People yelling at me that I'm not at Top 10 level. 'You learned to fight by watching me. Your guy that trains you was somebody that was in my era.'"

Transcription taken from UFC.com.