FSM ARCHIVE (July 2011): The Devil In Nick Diaz

"I swear to God, I thought he was all for show. Nick Diaz is legitimately nuts. He’s crazy." - former UFC fighter Joe Riggs

Current Bellator Fighting Championships competitor Riggs isn’t the only one who has ever questioned the sanity of Nick Diaz. But equally, few have ever questioned the ability of the Stockton, California native, either. To put it mildly, Diaz’ wild, aggressive brand of mixed martial arts is unorthodox, and the off-kilter nature of the man himself has been displayed in all kinds of destructive behaviour. Still, both his style and his mentality has resulted in a terrific run of exciting brawls against a series of fighters who would have been unable to survive long against him on the ground. Most notably, his fight against Paul "Semtex" Daley attracted rave reviews as one of the best one-round brawls in the sport’s history, as Diaz became the first man to knock out the British welterweight, who is famed for having the heaviest hands in the division.

A world-class Gracie Jiu-Jitsu black belt, Diaz has increasingly ignored trying to take the fight to the ground, in preference for testing his stand-up skills against pure strikers such as Scott Smith, "Cyborg" Santos, and Marius Zaromskis. Indeed, Diaz has often tried to goad his big-punching opponents, dropping his hands down and daring them to land a big shot on his chin. This desire to dive head-first into his opponent’s strengths is largely unheard-of in a sport increasingly defined by the percentages game, as fighters seek to best match their strengths against their opponent’s weaknesses. Critics interpreted such tactics less kindly, arguing that Diaz still lacked the wrestling needed to consistently take down even those fighters not known for having robust defensive wrestling.

Such reckless performances and a lop-sided skill-set inevitably drew contrasts with the UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre, including one back at the beginning of the year, in issue 64 of FSM.

"Could there be two more different champions than Georges St. Pierre and Nick Diaz?" the story read. "Not only are their personalities polar opposites, but there is a profound difference in the way they approach fighting. Whereas GSP develops risk-adverse game-plans that perfectly exploit his opponent’s weaknesses, Diaz seems disinterested in his world-class grappling as he slugs it out with heavy-handed strikers."

Street Fighting Man
Diaz’s willingness to take the fight to his opponent has sadly not been limited to his exploits inside the cage, however, as he has been involved in three high-profile brawls outside of the confines of organised sport. Perhaps the most notorious of these was that which took place in April 2010, between Diaz (plus the other fighters in Jake Shields’ corner) and Jason "Mayhem" Miller. Diaz reacted badly when Miller stormed the cage and playfully demanded a title shot immediately after Shields had successfully defended his Strikeforce middleweight title against Dan Henderson. Ignoring the plaintive cries of commentator Gus Johnson that they were "live on national television", the self-styled "Scrap Pack" wrestled Miller to the ground and proceeded to put the boots to an out-numbered "Mayhem" in a professional wrestling-esque beatdown.

While in interviews Diaz later apologised for his part in the brawl, he was largely unrepentant. "Miller just appeared from nowhere - everyone just reacted. It was really quick; (Jake Shields) got two words in, and then, boom, he was there. It makes me really angry, because I see my partner pull through for us and win that fight, and then this guy is going to get up in his shit. (It) made me really angry."

Though Strikeforce and Showtime somehow seemed to take Diaz’ side in the argument - the promotion’s CEO Scott Coker blamed Miller for the fiasco, while the broadcaster blacklisted him - one cannot escape the stench of hypocrisy in Diaz’s justification for his actions. After all, in the ill-fated EliteXC promotion, he and his brother Nate were involved in a brawl with KJ Noons and his father, after confronting the lightweight champion about receiving a re-match for the belt. As Noons talked about his latest successful defence and played to the crowd, Diaz verbally berated him. When finally asked for a comment by presenter Bill Goldberg, Diaz came out with the immortal line, "Don’t be scared, homie." This was too much for Noons’ father, who swung for Diaz, and so kick-started a pier-six brawl in the middle of the cage. Just as against Miller, Diaz escaped the blame for the brawl, with EliteXC going as far as to strip Noons of the title when he refused to face Diaz in the re-match. This despite the fact that Diaz accused Noons Sr. of having started the brawl, in
over-reacting to his interview due to being drunk.

While Dana White mocked both Strikeforce and EliteXC for failing to keep order, even the UFC has been the scene of one of Diaz’s extracurricular fights, as he got into a brawl in a hospital with Joe Riggs after they fought at UFC 57. In an interview with MMA Weekly, Riggs recounted the entire scene in an attempt dispel rumours that he had been knocked out by Diaz.

"He starts coming up to me - I just never in a million years thought he’d throw a punch," said Riggs. "He threw a right hook and hit me right in the chin. I mean it hit me right on the button. I seriously can’t say that I was knocked out, but I kind of went down to a knee. Then we just fought and scrambled. I put him against the wall and just Thai-clinched and started kneeing the shit out of him. His nose was bleeding. I kept kneeing him, and they broke us up. (Through all of this) I had an IV going - my blood was spraying everywhere. It was like a horror movie."

Fighting High
While lesser fighters have seen their careers destroyed by just one backstage brawl, Diaz not only survived but thrived from the notoriety he gained. Pride, EliteXC, and Strikeforce commentator Mauro Ranallo dubbed him "the bad boy of MMA", and Strikeforce made a concentrated effort to make matches that fed off the controversy. While they successfully booked an enjoyable re-match with KJ Noons and Showtime’s boycott stopped dead any plans for Diaz-Miller, it was their failed attempt to make Nick Diaz versus Joe Riggs II that generated the most headlines.

The fight was scheduled to take place in Strikeforce’s home base of San Jose, California on August 15, 2009, and would have crowned the promotion’s first welterweight champion. Instead, the fight wound up being cancelled after Diaz failed to undergo the pre-fight drug testing necessary to renew his licence. The website of his promoter Cesar Gracie left nobody in any doubt as to why he had failed to show.

"(Diaz) would have tested positive for cannabis… A positive test would not only have barred him from participating on August 15, but would have also made him ineligible to fight for over a year in California, thus making his re-match fight with Joe Riggs a remote possibility. After weighing all options, it was decided that his best option would be to forego this fight".

Diaz’ cannabis use was no secret by this point, with the fighter’s career having been temporarily derailed by the issue on two previous occasions. In 2007, an impressive victory over the top-rated lightweight Takanori Gomi was overturned after he tested positive for the drug. In 2008, he was stopped from fighting by the California State Athletic Commission - a decision that Cesar Gracie said was due to his medicinal use of the drug.

"He’s got a medical marijuana card... Nick is a naturalist by heart - he thinks Ritalin (a drug used to treat some forms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, but also narcolepsy) is an amphetamine. People with (ADHD) are kind of hyper, so he has trouble sleeping. He got the medical marijuana card, and he takes his pot to go to sleep and be more focused. It’s completely legal in California."

A year later, in 2009, an unrepentant Diaz not only talked openly to the LA Times bout his continued use of the banned substance, but seemingly explained how he was now able to beat drugs tests.

"I’m happy to get loaded, hear some good music… I can pass a drug test in eight days with herbal cleansers. I drink 10 pounds of water and sweat out 10 pounds of water every day. I’ll be fine."

At the heart of the controversy was Diaz’ open bafflement as to why he was being pursued by the authorities for something he considered healthy, while in his eyes other fighters were getting away with misbehaviour that was doing them far more damage.

"There are plenty of ‘roid-heads out there that are popping vikes (vicodin) and slamming shots on the weekends and cutting 20 pounds of water and just doing completely freak things. They’re probably not going to be able to last their whole life doing that stuff, but we’re not getting on them, we’re getting on me."

It took the public pleading of Gracie to persuade Diaz to simply stop talking about the topic. "Smoke weed all you want legally in California - you’re allowed to. Just stop talking about it." Gracie’s blunt advice was due to his concern that Diaz’ career was being overshadowed by the controversy. "I want him to be known for his skills, not his drugs. He doesn’t need to be the spokesperson for cannabis."

The True Charismatic Enigma
Diaz’ open use of cannabis and frequent involvement brawling were not only sources of controversy in his life. A constant source of friction was his open contempt for the grind of publicity appearances that is the life of a high-profile MMA fighter - something he talked openly about to shortly after his exit from the UFC.

"I’m ready to do my job, and that’s another important thing. I failed to do my job as a UFC fighter somewhat in the past, as far as everything that goes along with it, because it’s not just the fighting part. I’ll fight anybody, and that’s what I thought it was about. It’s like, 'OK, well, I’ll do my job.' My job is fighting - that’s what this job is. This is fighting. It should be simple enough? But it’s not. I have to do acting, and role-playing, and being a part of this PR and whole Hollywood (thing)."

It was a reputation that was well known to his fellow fighters, with Urijah Faber explaining how refusing to go on the American version of Blind Date led to the UFC punishing Diaz by relegating him to the prelim card. "I remember Diaz telling me years ago about how they punished him for not going on that dating show they were having a couple of fighters go on. Nick had a girlfriend at the time, and they wanted him to go on there for publicity, and he wouldn’t do it." More surprisingly, Diaz turned down the opportunity to go on The Ultimate Fighter 4: The Comeback, a spot that would have given him the chance to earn a World title shot.

His irascibility by no means diminished as his career reached a new peak in Strikeforce after winning the organisation’s welterweight title in a fight-off against Marius Žaromskis in early 2010. He would repeatedly fail to show up for interviews and official pre-fight conference calls, while when he did show up, he usually failed to stay on-topic, let alone on-message. Indeed one of his last interviews as Strikeforce champion saw him at his abrasive best, berating MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani for instigating feuds between fighters. Of course,
while his outrageous statements often embarrassed his promoter, they made for brilliant copy for the very press he so often scorned.

A recurring theme was his unhappiness at how little he was paid as one of Showtime’s biggest MMA stars, when compared to the boxers who fought on the premium cable station. As far back as 2007, he talked about his frustration with the pay of Floyd Mayweather Jr. compared to that enjoyed by MMA fighters.

"I’d go right to jail. I don’t give a fuck, though. I’m like, whatever. I wanted to just punch (Mayweather) and be like, 'Hey, you little bitch', and start talking shit to him and try to get him to fight me… And it’s not even Floyd that makes me want to, either. It’s whoever is paying them, and not paying us. That makes me just really want to put it out there and show them just how easily I whooped this guy’s ass like he was my bitch."

So infamous was his reputation that when legendary pro-wrestling booker Paul Heyman was putting together his first advert for EA Sports MMA, he focused on Diaz’ bad-boy reputation in a fourth-wall-breaking personality piece that saw Diaz beat up the commercial’s runner, swear repeatedly at both the runner and Heyman, and eventually walk off the set.

Boxed Into A Super-Fight
Whatever he’s doing, Nick Diaz talks and acts like MMA’s loose cannon. And oddly enough, the story of how the bout between Diaz and Georges St. Pierre was made bears more than a passing resemblance to how pro wrestling’s own wild-man, Brian Pillman, tricked Eric Bischoff into releasing him from his WCW contract.

Whereas Pillman played on Bischoff’s desire to run the ultimate pseudo-shoot angle and so "work the boys backstage, and the dirtsheet writers", Diaz’ manager Cesar Gracie exploited Strikeforce’s desperation to sign their champions to long-term contracts by sealing an agreement with Coker that Diaz would be allowed to enter the boxing ring in 2011. The agreement was left largely untold until after his dramatic victory over Paul Daley, but then Gracie went to work, appearing on Inside MMA to announce Diaz’ desired career change. Soon, he was able to announce that they were partnered with
long-time boxing promoter Don Chargin, and had provisionally agreed a bout with former IBF super-middleweight champion Jeff Lacey.

From the start, both Gracie and Diaz made clear that the issue was their unhappiness with the level of competition left in Strikeforce, with Diaz going as far as to use an official press release to state that after defeating Daley, the organisation had nobody left who was worthy of fighting him.

"(Strikeforce) doesn’t have anybody else for me to fight right now, I’m better than all these guys they have. I don’t see much of a future in this sport for me. I honestly don’t, especially if there’s not a whole (lot) of money going on." Gracie was even less subtle in talking about how the problem was finding a way to motivate Diaz - something that he felt could only be now done by a boxing match or a super-fight against a UFC champion.

The tactics were fairly transparent to everyone; after all, Anderson Silva had similarly tried to use the possibility of a boxing match with Roy Jones Jr. as leverage against the UFC. But much like Pillman playing WCW and the WWF against each other, what made Gracie’s ruse so effective was that, due to Diaz’ unpredictability, nobody could be entirely sure that he was bluffing. Diaz had, after all, shown a willingness and ability to stand and bang against the likes of KJ Noons and Paul Daley, trained with top quality boxers such as WBA super-middleweight champion Andre Ward to improve his stand-up, and indeed had taken part in one professional boxing match. Even with the St. Pierre bout agreed, nobody is completely certain as to the extent of Diaz’s genuine interest in boxing.

It’s therefore no wonder that UFC President Dana White reneged on his initial statement that champion versus champion bouts would not yet take place between the two companies, and made the bout for UFC 137, tentatively scheduled to take place in Las Vegas on October 29. Political, contractual, and promotional hurdles clearly had to be overcome, but it speaks volumes for Diaz that White negotiated them in seemingly record time.

In all likelihood, if Gracie hadn’t come up with the ruse of threatening to put Diaz in a boxing ring, and if Diaz hadn’t been crazy enough to make people believe he actually wanted to do so, the 27-year-old would now be preparing to face largely unknown and unranked former college wrestler Tyron Woodley in defence of what is very much the second-best welterweight championship in MMA. For somebody often chided by Dana White for failing to play the game, he and his camp played for high stakes, and won.

In October at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, another chapter in the crazy story of Nick Diaz will be written, one way or the other. Should Diaz dethrone the clean-cut poster-boy that is St. Pierre, one wonders if White will regret giving "The Devil" his due.