Dana White explains why Nate Diaz vs. Leon Edwards was scheduled for five rounds

UFC president Dana White explained why the upcoming Nate Diaz vs. Leon Edwards welterweight bout at UFC 263 was scheduled for five rounds.

For the first time in UFC history, a fight other than a title bout or main event will be scheduled for 25 minutes when Diaz takes on Edwards on June 12 at UFC 263. The fight was originally slated as the co-main event for UFC 262 and was set for five rounds, but even after the fight was moved to UFC 263, which already has two five-round title fights set to take place, the fight between Edwards and Diaz was kept for the five rounds.

Speaking to Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports, White explained why the UFC made the decision to go with Edwards vs. Diaz for five rounds, simply saying that’s what both fighters wanted.

“They wanted to fight five rounds. It was easy,” Dana White said. “That’s what they were scheduled for in the fight before (at UFC 262), too.”

With Diaz vs. Edwards propping up a card that already features UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya vs. Marvin Vettori 2 in the main event and Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Brandon Moreno 2 in the co-main event, White feels that UFC 263 is a stacked card.

“If you look at the card, every Saturday night I compete with something, whether you gotta take your wife out to dinner or there’s a new movie coming out, whatever it is, there’s always something we compete with on Saturday. When you look at this card, you’ve got Adesanya vs. Vettori, you got Figueiredo vs. Moreno which was in the running for ‘Fight of the Year’ last year. If Weili Zhang vs. Joanna (Jedrzejczyk) hadn’t happened, they would have won. Then you have Edwards vs. Diaz. I mean the card is ridiculous. It’s a great card, it’s stacked from top to bottom, and (Edwards vs. Diaz) should have an impact on the pay-per-view,” White said.

Who do you think takes the Nate Diaz vs. Leon Edwards fight at UFC 263?