Nick Diaz was finally getting the recognition that the Stockton native rightfully deserved, but admittedly couldn’t handle.
It wasn’t too long ago that fans and the media alike were looking forward to an eventual blockbuster showdown pitting the former Strikeforce titleholder in Diaz against pound-for-pound great Georges St-Pierre for the UFC welterweight strap.
What ensued thereafter was an unforeseeable snowball of changes made to the UFC 137 event, which takes place next month at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.
After the colorfully-controversial Diaz no-showed not one, but two press conferences, UFC president Dana White made the choice to bounce the Cesar Gracie protege from his headlining duties and promote Carlos Condit to the main event instead.
Diaz has been infamously known as an intelligent, likable and sometimes well-spoken guy, while the majority of his career has been spent in the midst of head scratching and awkward moments, which adds to part of his charm.
The UFC head honcho knew what he was getting himself into when he invested in the Nick Diaz business this past June, after signing the Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt into the big leagues, though White couldn’t have predicted that this would happen.
“I wake up every morning and find out I have a whole long list of problems to deal with. Nick Diaz took a week out of my life dealing with this,” said a frustrated White at a news conference via Yahoo! Sports.
Diaz will now be facing former champion B.J. Penn in the co-main event of the pay-per-view event, filling in for Condit once “The Natural Born Killer” was called to a higher purpose.
Does White think of the enigmatic and anti-social Diaz as a coward? Absolutely not. Nick has proven to be as game a fighter as they come, taking on all comers in an effort to prove his worth in a sport dictated by public opinion.
But does White believe that the PRIDE veteran crumbled under the pressures of the media and the extra attention? Of course.
“What basically happened is, Nick freaked out. He disappeared. He told me he couldn’t handle the pressure of the main event. It wasn’t that he couldn’t fight it or wouldn’t have fought it, but all the responsibilities that come with fighting in the main event, he said he couldn’t deal with that. The fighting part is the easy part to him.”
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