An elite professional athlete doesn’t do what Nick Diaz did, not on the precipice of what could have been the greatest night of his professional life.
UFC president Dana White made the dramatic move Wednesday to yank Diaz from a welterweight championship bout against Georges St. Pierre that would have topped the card at UFC 137 on Oct. 29 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas about 10 minutes before a bizarre news conference began in the deserted arena.
Nick Diaz is known for his wild fighting style in the cage. But he's even better known for his unpredictability outside it.
White opened the news conference by recounting the chain of events of the last several days. He noted how Diaz missed two flights to Toronto, another to Las Vegas and how he couldn’t be certain Diaz would show up for the fight.
Only moments before White and St. Pierre walked on stage, White pulled Diaz and offered the bout to Carlos Condit. Condit, who was to have fought B.J. Penn on the undercard of UFC 137, broke down in tears when he learned the news, White said.
White said he has promoted more than 1,600 fights in his career and this is the first time a main-event fighter has failed to show up for a news conference. Worse, White called Diaz after Diaz had missed a Monday afternoon Air Canada flight from San Francisco to Toronto. According to White, Diaz apologized and White had him rebooked on a flight later that night.
“He lied to my face,” White said.
Diaz has lost virtually all of the credibility he had with all but an extremely small segment of the fan base. He’s the guy who once taunted an opponent while asking for a rematch by saying, “Don’t be scared, homie.” But Diaz wasn’t willing to get onto a plane and sit through a couple of hour-long news conferences in order to fulfill his contractual obligations and earn what White said would have been “life-changing money” to fight St. Pierre.
Diaz has never liked to do media appearances – The truth is, though, few high-level fighters do, including St. Pierre, who admitted as much on Wednesday – but sitting for an hour at a news conference is far better than blowing a major fight and, potentially, his career.
“I would have to assume with Diaz that we’re probably going to let him go, but we’ll see what happens,” said White, who said he had spent $15,000 on airfare trying to get Diaz to where he needed to be.
It was almost comical when, in the middle of the news conference, White’s cell phone rang. Cesar Gracie, Diaz’s manager, was on the other end of the line. Gracie, though, wasn’t pleading for one last chance.
Gracie agreed with White’s decision and told him so.
“I’ve stuck up for Nick, even when he was wrong before,” Gracie told MMAjunkie.com. “But he’s let a lot of people down. He’s let his team down. We all bought plane tickets to Vegas. We got hotel rooms booked, paid for. We’ve got all that, and Nick just decided not to go to something he’s supposed to. They’re paying him a lot of money, and in this economy where people don’t have money, he’s blessed. He should be thanking God every night how blessed he is.
“And instead, he’s not getting on a plane to go to Vegas. I’m extremely disappointed. He’s done a lot of stuff, but this is the worst of it. If I were him, I would be begging Dana White to get my job back and work your way up to a title shot at some point.”
A straight-thinking person doesn’t do what Diaz did, but Diaz also isn’t a Harvard graduate. Gracie speculated Diaz might have a social anxiety disorder, but he admits he doesn’t know. No one does.
Only Diaz really knows what moves him and, if the truth be told, he probably couldn’t rationally explain why he chose to skip the news conferences.
That’s why White couldn’t have gone forward with the fight card with Diaz in the main event. This is a guy who slipped out the back door at Gracie’s home as Gracie was preparing to drive him to the airport.
It’s bad enough to pull him now, after tickets had gone on sale, advertising purchased and promotional materials had been printed.
Imagine, though, the outcry from fans who had purchased the pay-per-view expecting to see Diaz fight St. Pierre only to learn on the night of the fight that Diaz failed to show.
White made a rational decision Wednesday because it was clear he couldn’t count on Diaz to do the same.
“Am I supposed to move forward with this fight and feel confident that this kid is going to show up to fight?” White said. “He’s running and hiding from his camp, his team. I’d rather pull the fight now than not have him show up the night of the event.”
The UFC almost has no option to cut him. White is extraordinarily fighter-friendly in these kinds of situations. In 2008, he went to great extremes to defend Quinton “Rampage” Jackson when Jackson was charged with several felonies while leading police on a chase in Costa Mesa, Calif. If White had a viable alternative, he likely wouldn’t dump Diaz. Given the circumstances, though, what choice does he have?
The news of his release will likely come in the next several days, and that will leave Diaz struggling to find a job. Any promoter whose fights air on television would have to think long and hard about putting Diaz on, given the threat of the no-show.
It’s a sad situation, but Diaz is a grown man. He doesn’t have to fight Georges St. Pierre if he doesn’t want.
But when you sign your name on a contract and say you’ll do something, including making media appearances to promote your fight, you do it.
When you don’t, you find yourself in a situation like Nick Diaz is today, a great talent who is likely to discover he has no place to showcase it.
If it was willful on Diaz’ part, then he deserves everything that happens to him.
But if, as I suspect, there is more to it than Diaz just flouting authority, here’s hoping the UFC gets him the help and gives him the support he needs. That’s the only right thing to do.
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