Former UFC lightweight contender Diego Sanchez will not return to the division.

Sanchez made the announcement on Tuesday during a conference call to promote his upcoming welterweight bout against Martin Kampmann. The two are scheduled to meet March 3 in Louisville, Ky.

"The options are closed for me to ever go down to 155 [pounds] again," Sanchez said.

Sanchez began his UFC career at middleweight, defeating Kenny Florian to capture The Ultimate Fighter Season 1 title. But he quickly exited the 185-pound division to begin competing at welterweight.

After compiling a 7-2-0 record in the UFC's 170-pound division, Sanchez decided to try his hand at 155 pounds. He would go 2-1-0 as a lightweight, dropping his final bout, before making a successful return to welterweight in October 2010, beating Paulo Thiago by unanimous decision.

To improve his chances of experiencing more success at 170, Sanchez has added weight lifting to his training regimen. Sanchez believes he must increase his physical strength.

"I brought in Olympic wrestler Willie Parks. He's a big 185-pounder and about an inch taller than me," the 5-foot-10 Sanchez said. "He's big on lifting weights. We lift weights every day after practice. We go at it hard. That's the thing we do on top of our training.

"It's a real motivation for me to be strong. In my last fight I worked hard, but I wasn't physically strong."

In addition to abandoning the lightweight division, Sanchez is also getting rid of his nickname. He will no longer refer to himself as 'The Nightmare.'

"I let 'The Nightmare' go," Sanchez said. "I see some negative in it. A nightmare is something that is negative and kind of evil. I don't want to represent that. I want to represent positivity and good.

"All the times I fell off the track and got into drinking, got into smoking weed; the things that brought me down, the partying. That was my nightmare. I was my own nightmare. I'm grown up. I'm going to let that name go. I just want to be Diego Sanchez. I don't need a nickname. I'm me."

Sanchez will enter his bout against Kampmann with a professional record of 22-4-0.

Kampmann is 17-4-0. He will look to rebound from a split-decision loss to Jake Shields on October 23, 2010.