According to MMAFighting, Cesar Gracie has come out firing on all cylinders, claiming that the judges who adjudicated the UFC 143 main event don’t and have never liked Nick Diaz, and also asserted that it was pretty much a case of a prolonged personal vendetta against his charge.
“I don’t think the judges like Nick,” he said. “He comes off, he talks in the ring… Carlos was running at one point, and Nick slapped him in the face said, ‘Quit running.’ We were there for a dogfight. Carlos said he’d provide for the fans a dogfight, a great fight where they were going to go at it. That was not a dogfight. It takes two to make a dogfight. One guy running away is not a dogfight.
“I don’t know what the judges were looking at,” he continued. “They’ve never liked Nick in Vegas. They’ve never voted for him in a decision. The only one was the BJ Penn fight, and he almost had to kill BJ to get that one. I don’t think they like his attitude, a guy that’s going to go out there and talk. I think they think he’s disrespectful. They’re going to find a reason to judge against him. I don’t think he can get fair judging in that state at all.”
The cage-side judges, Junichiro Kamijo, Cecil Peoples and Patricia Morse-Jarman, unanimously scored the bout 49-46, 49-46 and 48-47 in favor of Carlos Condit, who also captured the interim welterweight title in the process.
Though, Gracie was mostly irked by the way he felt the judges scored the first round.
“I literally just got off my computer to watch that first round again,” he said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “And I thought, you’d have to be insane to think a guy chasing the other guy down, landing the significant punches, and running after a guy, trying to fight a guy who will not fight, that is scared to fight, and you lose? How do I tell my fighter what he should have done better? It takes two men to fight. If one guy doesn’t fight, that should be a point deducted.”
That win has now propelled “The Natural Born Killer” to the No. 1 contender to Georges St-Pierre’s championship belt, a status that has earned him the right to vie for title when next St-Pierre sets foot into the Octagon.
Conversely, following the judges’ decision, a distraught Diaz subsequently announced his retirement from professional MMA (Mixed Martial Arts). However, an immediate rematch, something which UFC president Dana White seems to be in favor of, could bring the Stocktonian back into the fold.
Though, Gracie has yet to hear anything from that quarter.
Still, with the recent news of Condit’s manager, Malki Kawa, stating that a rematch is out of the question, things remain as they were. However, Gracie isn’t surprised.
“Of course they’re not interested in a rematch,” he said. “They lost the first one.”
That said, amidst all the brouhaha surrounding the decision, and especially the way Condit was alleged to have ran throughout the bout, Gracie harbours no ill feelings towards him, though the same can’t be said about Jackson’s Submission Fighting gym.
“It’s one thing to avoid standing in the pocket, it’s one thing to know how to dodge punches and kicks, and be somewhat elusive and have great defense,” he said. “It’s another thing to turn your back and run from a fighter. That’s completely different. You shouldn’t be telling your fighter to fight like that. I think it’s a disgrace and a shame. I’ve said this before: I don’t like that camp. I’m not going to take that back,” Gracie said.
Gracie took a parting shot at the judges who presided over the bout as well as, suggesting that the overall judging system reeks of inefficacy.
“The whole judging criteria is so flawed, and that these guys don’t have anyone to answer to,” he said. “Once they’re in there, they’re not getting reviewed. You’re going to get fired because you’re obviously an incompetent judge? That doesn’t happen. It’s like the Supreme Court. You’re in there for life. You can do whatever you want and you can tell everybody basically to ‘F off’ if they don’t like it. It’s a position of total power. They’re making decisions that are ruining the sport and are ridiculous. No one’s going to get them out of there. It’s absurd if you think about it.”
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