We here at Inside Fights wanted to post a couple of pieces debating on whether or not Nick Diaz should still be employed in the UFC after the debacle that was the UFC 137 press conference. And what started out as a simple e-mail exchange between two editors blew up into a discussion of the events. Thus we present the Epic Debate over Nick Diaz and UFC 137
Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz:
With Nick Diaz being pulled from the main event, and speculation on whether or not he will still be in the UFC after the next 48 hours or so, has left this looming in the air like a stale fart.
Should Nick Diaz still have a job in the UFC after this debacle?
While I genuinely like him as a fighter, I can’t see how Dana White and Zuffa can keep him around after this. He has a big contract, big enough to make him give up boxing, and gave him the biggest moment of his life in a fight with GSP (which he screamed for). And he blew it off, too, and shirked any responsibility for missing it. When you can’t do something as simple as show up for a press conference, how can you trust him to do anything else?
Shawn M Smith:
Okay Scott, I see your point, I do. Here’s the problem though: who cares. The guy doesn’t duck fights, he shows up and delivers. This was an anticipated contest, one that Dana and UFC bent over backwards to make happen and with two no shows he’s pulled from the main event? Not cool. Listen, we know that this guy suffers from some kind of anxiety issue that he self-medicates and I won’t judge him for it, but don’t fire the guy. He should have been warned. Was he warned after he “missed” Toronto? That I cannot say. I do know, however, that he flaked out on the second press conference.
Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz:
Here’s the thing though. No one else has ducked press conferences before and this sets a bad precedent. Say what you will about guys like Brock Lesnar but you never see him skipping a presser because he doesn’t like doing them. The only fighter who really enjoys them is Chael Sonnen, but he’s a self-promoting whore in that regard.
I think it would be a bit much to cut him but here’s the thing: it sets a bad precedent if you don’t. If Diaz suffers no consequences then it shows every fighter that you can cross the boss and get away with it. It says that making Dana White and GSP look bad is ok and that you can do it without consequence.
Part of the fight game is promoting fights with both fighters. Floyd Mayweather was on HBO last night and he’s the same way as Diaz.
Shawn M Smith:
Yes, the precedent would be set…if you let it slide. Fine him part of his purse. Deny him the right to fight bonuses. The fight was put together for the fans and you don’t earn the right to the title shot by going to press conferences. You fight and prove you’re the best. Yes, Brock plays the game a bit. He also plays a great heel and is willing to upset sponsors to get across his own feelings. Remember the “Coors Light” incident post-fight? Dana was livid, going so far as to have Brock sitting at the press conference with a Bud Light in front of him.
I mentioned Barret Robbins before. He’s the NFL lineman who famously went so nuts the night before the Super Bowl that his own coach had to sit him during his best season ever. Once the league gave up on a man who could be dealing with the post-concussive symptoms of years of head trauma as an offensive lineman, he was discarded had has ended up a shell of a man, let alone the man that he was. Could Diaz end up there? Maybe. He’s already known to self-medicate and could cost himself his career in the process. Sort of like Ricky Williams. Could have been one of the best ever, which I am not saying Diaz is, but it wasn’t the drugs that ruined him. It wasn’t handling the reasons that he used them in the first place sooner that cost him years on his career.
Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz:
Here’s the thing … its one thing to insult a sponsor in the heat of the moment. It’s another to not put in the work for a fight. Fining him a part of the purse, et al, may hurt him in the short term but its bad business practice for the UFC in the long term.
Showing that guys will only lose a little bit of money will make it a business proposition on whether or not to show up for anything but the fight itself. Part of building a billion-dollar business was the UFC promoting its fighters and getting them to talk to the media, et al. And it’s not like this is Diaz’s first offense, either. He skipped the pre-fight drug screen against Jay Hieron and screwed up that card beforehand years ago.
Diaz has issues, perhaps, and so did Barret Robbins, but here’s the thing. Robbins was bi-polar and never on medication, never diagnosed until the Super Bowl actually. It’s a genuine tragedy how his life ended up. The Stockton fighter has an issue, too, but his is called maturity.
He’s almost 30 and yet he’s acting like a child. He wants to be a superstar but doesn’t want to do the ancillary things that put one in that range. GSP may hate doing that stuff but it fuels his status as the biggest star in MMA not named Brock Lesnar.
Shawn M Smith:
Showing up to a press conference helps to hype a fight, certainly, but Nick Diaz was someone Dana wanted around before they took him from Strikeforce. Dana knew what he was signing up for. Hell, the kid was ready to bolt and go box despite the fact that he wouldn’t have made much more than he was for a UFC fight.
To act as if you’re shocked over his petulant behavior would be silly. You can’t put the keys to the car in the hands of this guy; he’s unstable and doesn’t care about anyone but himself. His own coach said that he has no one to blame but himself, but that doesn’t mean he’s being childish. Something is wrong if you just bolt and hide before a presser and no one can find you. That’s not normal. If you or I did that with our jobs, sure, we’d be fired. This isn’t the same. UFC has insurance for their fighters and Nick needs help. Cesar or Nate or someone needs to get Nick into a psychiatrist to talk about what the hell just happened. Otherwise, there’s no excuse and he needs to be let go.
Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz:
Anyone who’s surprised at this is a moron. Heck, I’m the guy who wrote a whole piece on how we need to view Diaz as being in his own seperate zone of MMA. So I’m not all that surprised that this has happened. More like disappointed would be a better phrase.
But here’s the thing. You can expect him to do a lot of things, but when you sign your name on the dotted line with the UFC there comes a certain coda of professionalism that’s implicit with it. Yeah guys have leeway that they wouldn’t have with a lot of sports but that’s part of the charm I suppose. But showing up is something that has to happen.
Diaz may talk all he wants, but what happens fight night when he decides he doesn’t want to? Or worse, holds up the UFC for more money before he’ll step into a cage? By excusing big faux pas behavior like this you’re opening up your expectations for his behavior. We’ve seen what happens when this guy who’s already a somewhat famous fighter, but not really well known, does because of the strains of what you’d call D-list celebrity. What happens when this guy becomes a big superstar?
Cutting Diaz might be the best thing for him right now. Yeah he needs help but if you reward his bad behavior by still letting him do what he does best then he has no incentive to get it. So far Nick has never had anyone punish him harshly for acting like a spoiled, petulant child who thinks his worth is far more than it is. So far it comes off as unwarranted self-importance.
Shawn M Smith:
Nick needs stability. Nick needs his job and while he’s got it in his head that he’s more important that the guidelines laid out by UFC, Dana and the Fertittas, what he needs is a clinic. I can’t stress it enough. What grown ass man no shows two press conferences and then runs off? He was hiding because:
1) He knew he screwed up
2) He couldn’t explain why he screwed up
This wasn’t a conscious decision. He started making excuses on the response video, something about a passport keeping him from Toronto, but listen to how quickly he snaps on the other drivers. Listen to the mumble. Am I an amateur psychiatrist? Sure. Can I be? Sure. My guess is better than most and I don’t mean any disrespect to either Nick, his family or, hell, psychiatrists, but he needs someone to intervene and say, “Bro, you asked for this fight, you wanted this job, why are you throwing it away?”
When they hear him say “I don’t know what happened,” which will be the first thing that they say, they need to put him in the car and get him help. He’s losing track of time, he’s disappearing, he’s making excuses for his irrational and erratic behavior. He sounded shameful, albeit while trying to “keep it real” on his video, so something is amiss.
Keep him on the roster. Get him help or at least get him looked at. If I’m wrong, fine, but I would rather he gets looked after and I am wrong than we find him toting crack in his pickup or smuggling drugs or something crazy to make a buck.
Now that both Shawn and I have said our piece, what do you think of all of this? Let us know below.
