Nick Diaz and pre-fight animosity aren't exactly strangers. With his brazen style and tendency to speak his mind, Diaz has proven to be a master at provoking his opponents both inside and outside of the cage, even drawing the usually-reserved Georges St-Pierre into his now-infamous dark place before the pair fought at UFC 158.

And while Diaz has remained largely silent since his blockbuster return bout against former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva was scheduled for early 2015, that didn't happen to be the case when the fighting pride of Stockton was still angling for the fight earlier this summer while Silva was rehabilitating his badly broken left leg.

"I'll tell you what, I think [Silva] should fire his trainer and hire himself a boxing trainer that teaches him how to put punches out," Diaz told Fighthub. "I don't talk no s**t. I ain't trying to talk no s**t. Of course he's got as many fights as he wants to have, but people saying s**t like, 'He should retire. He's not going to be the same.' I'm like, 'Fire your coach and get somebody to train your punches.'

"His last fight, he had punches for [Chris Weidman], but he didn't have no punches. Know what I'm sayin'? That was the key. Putting punches out there but [Silva] had no punches for that guy. So then he started lobbing kicks out there and you saw what happened to his leg. He didn't have no answer for it."

Diaz's advice went largely forgotten until Tuesday, when it was once again brought back to light during Silva's UFC 183 press conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

"[Diaz] made a mistake," Silva's boxing coach, Luis Dorea, said of the remark.

"It's part of promoting, he's got a good level (of boxing). But ... Anderson is a lot more superior technically. Nick Diaz is strong, he comes forward, but Anderson, with his natural ability, he's much better.

"I believe it will be a fight that has a lot of striking," Dorea added. "But I believe [Anderson] has a lot more speed, a lot more power in his punch. Nick Diaz is always looking for the fight moving forward. We're going to work hard using his natural abilities, his weaknesses, his strengths, and with all of that we're going to have a great victory."

For what it's worth, Silva effectively appealed to Dorea when asked about Diaz's comment. Although having been through this song and dance twice before with the slick-talking Chael Sonnen, the 39-year-old Silva dropped an ominous response when asked how he would respond if Diaz tried to ramp up his trash talking in the event's lead-up.

"I'm very easygoing," the former champ said through a translator. "I'm in a radical sport, for a lot of people it's a violent sport, but I'm a very easygoing guy.

"I think my work has nothing to do with my personality, but I don't like to be disrespected as a man. I think you need to have respect as an athlete and as a man. If he disrespects me, things are going to happen as they need to happen."