Nick Diaz has indeed paid taxes before, contrary to the UFC fighter’s assertions to the contrary in the wake of his loss Saturday night at UFC 158 to welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre.
That’s according to Diaz‘s trainer, Cesar Gracie, who discussed the situation with MMA reporter Ariel Helwani Monday on The MMA Hour broadcast.
“He has paid taxes. I think he misspoke,” Gracie said. “It’s about filing…He’s not in any trouble that we’re aware of. We haven’t gotten any notices or anything.”
As he is sometimes inclined to do, Diaz stole the show at the news conference following UFC 158, but this time it may not have been in his usual, irascible, entertaining way.
Diaz indicated in the cage immediately after the fight that he would retire, but back-pedaled at the news conference, saying he would like a rematch with St-Pierre or a super fight with middleweight champ Anderson Silva. (Gracie said Monday he wasn’t sure whether Diaz would retire, but said the mercurial welterweight felt more motivated by “big fights.”)
The real bombshell, however, may have been Diaz‘s assertion that he had never paid taxes and was “probably going to jail” as a result. On Monday, Gracie, speaking in deliberately delicate terms, said he believed Diaz has paid taxes, but was behind on filing his papers. Gracie wondered aloud whether Diaz had actually paid more in taxes than what he actually owed, as a result of Diaz‘s own inattention or mismanagement of the issue.
“It’s kind of weird for me to speak about stuff like that, because when we talk about fighting, it’s fighting, but when you talk about taxes and stuff, I’m not an accountant, obviously,” Gracie said. “[Diaz] would pay the tax, and probably even more than he owed, I think, in the past few years…So he has paid hundreds of thousands in taxes…I think his issue is he needs to properly file. He’s got to get together with a good accountant and get his stuff in order like everybody else.”
Gracie seemed to indirectly express frustration over the fact that Diaz would share such information at an MMA press conference.
“For him to even bring that up after a fight was kind of off the wall,” Gracie said.
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