A few offhanded accusations from Nick Diaz noting some suspicious actions on the part of Georges St-Pierre—the UFC welterweight champion and the man who defeated Diaz on Saturday at UFC 158—gained new credibility on Monday when they were echoed by Cesar Gracie, Diaz‘s trainer.
Speaking to reporter Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour broadcast, Gracie hinted, as Diaz had, that St-Pierre might have been tipped off to some of Diaz‘s grappling strategies.
“GSP really knew the moves that Nick was going to do from bottom. It was kind of interesting,” Gracie said. “Nick does stuff that’s very unique. Stuff that he does in grappling, but he doesn’t necessarily do it in fighting. It was like ‘wait a minute, that guy is one step ahead, like he knows exactly [what Diaz was going to do].'”
At UFC 158, Diaz lost a five-round decision to St-Pierre. Much of the action took place on the ground, and St-Pierre thoroughly controlled the action there. That, however, is not surprising to anyone familiar with St-Pierre’s fighting style and mat dominance. Diaz is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt under Gracie.
Gracie vaguely hinted that he believed a current or former training partner of Diaz might have revealed some of Diaz‘s secrets to St-Pierre or his camp.
“It was kind of odd. Like someone, somewhere from our team, not a current member, but I don’t know,” Gracie said. “It’s just one of those things, but whatever. I don’t want to make that an issue at all.”
Gracie declined to identify any specific person by name.
Immediately after the fight, Diaz told broadcaster Joe Rogan in the cage that “I don’t know how [St-Pierre] knew what I was gonna do…I don’t want to make excuses…He blocked the kneebar, he blocked the roll…I don’t know how he saw that coming. It was kind of funny.”
Additionally, in the run-up to the fight, Diaz accused St-Pierre of using steroids. St-Pierre flatly denied the charge and went so far as to say he would welcome Olympic-style testing in MMA.
At UFC 158, Diaz was fighting for the first time since serving a year-long suspension, which he received after testing positive for marijuana metabolites. Diaz‘s previous fight came in February 2012, when he lost a decision to Carlos Condit for the UFC interim welterweight title.
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