If Nick Diaz were in a Vietnam War movie, this would be the scene where one soldier turns to another in the latrine and says, “I saw Diaz talking to his gun today. I think Diaz is a Section 8.”
There has been rampant speculation about the mindset of Nick Diaz since his press conference no-shows and subsequent demotion on the UFC 137 card. This conjecture only deepened when Diaz released his infamous YouTube video.
Many are now questioning whether Diaz was ever prepared to fight GSP in the first place and if he is in the right mindset to fight B.J. Penn now.
In a revealing, pre-no show interview with Fighters Only Magazine, Diaz sounds like a man on the verge of grabbing a rifle and heading to a tower somewhere in Texas. He makes frequent references to feeling “trapped” and refers to the fight game as “prison.”
When asked if he was looking forward to the fight with GSP he said, “Am I looking forward to the fight? No. If I fight, I lose, no matter what, win or lose. If I fight. Period…I am still stuck in this game.”
These sound like the words of someone who needs to be on anti-depressants, not a guy who is ready to take on one of the greatest fighters of all time. Diaz clearly showed signs of stress before the fight and was unapologetic in his video, so why is he getting another chance?
After saying “I will never take his word again,” Dana White seems to be doing just that by allowing Diaz to stay on the card against B.J. Penn.
Crazy or not, fans want to see Diaz fight and he is a grown man, but it does seem a risky move to keep a guy on a card who is clearly going through some stuff in his personal life. I am not a shrink. For all I know Diaz was just having a bad day; I don’t know the man. But if he wasn’t mentally prepared to fight GSP, why is he now suddenly okay to fight Penn?
Dana White wrote on his Twitter page, “This is crazy but here we go again,” when he announced Diaz/Penn, and my immediate reaction was that he is right: this is crazy and not just figuratively. Let’s hope for Dana White’s sake that he doesn’t suffer the same fate as the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket.
Diaz had better figure things out quickly, otherwise his stay in the UFC is going to be a short, albeit entertaining one.
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