LAS VEGAS — The most important part of Nick Diaz’s game is boxing, so it didn’t exactly help him that a left arm injury forced him to stop punching two weeks ago.
Diaz said the arm injury was not an issue in his unanimous decision loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 183 on Saturday night here at MGM Grand. But Diaz said he did need a cortisone shot and a UFC doctor told him that it could require surgery. Diaz might have bone spurs or bone fragments in his elbow, according to X-rays.
“I couldn’t really throw any punches until the fight, because I thought if it was gonna tear something or pull something, I would just get through it in the fight,” Diaz said. “I didn’t want to do it before the fight and have it swell up on me and go out there with nothing.”
Diaz said he had a hard time extending his arm all the way and every time he did it felt like “some tendons caught up and I can’t straighten it.”
“It was actually locking up on me and I couldn’t punch with it,” Diaz said. “But I came out to fight and it wasn’t an issue. But I was worried it was going to be, because every time I’d throw a punch in the last couple days it would lock up, it would stick.”
As for surgery, Diaz is not a big fan of going under the knife. And any kind of procedure would be predicated on him coming back for more fights, something he has not decided on yet. The 31-year-old has already “retired” several times and didn’t rule out doing it for real now.
“He said we can go in there and have surgery and take something out of there,” Diaz said of the doctor. “Something like that. But I haven’t really looked into it too much, I’m not really into having surgeries. I don’t know. We’ll have to see about that. If I’m not punching anybody, why do I need surgery?”
Diaz signed a new deal over the summer and surely made a boatload of money for this main event fight with Silva. His not showing up at open workouts Wednesday actually added juice to the matchup, which was one many fans had dreamed about for years.
But as for the future, Diaz was not sure. He did admit he was “tired of being a loser.” He has fallen in three straight fights. There’s little doubt, though, that he’s one of the biggest draws in the UFC right now and the promotion will surely want him back.
The love-hate relationship Diaz has with MMA has a pretty good chance of continuing.
“Sometimes I’m like, man, I wish I’d just fall off, so people stop talking about me,” Diaz said. “I feel like that’s just not happening. That’s how it seems from my end.”