After Nick Diaz no-showed for a press conference to promote his UFC 137 bout with UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, he was summarily removed from the fight.
Perhaps improbably, he then received a bout with B.J. Penn in the same event, but not before taking a smelting plant’s worth of heat in MMA circles for being unreliable, eccentric, difficult and perhaps, according to trainer Cesar Gracie, even mentally imbalanced.
It’s not the first time Diaz has pulled such shenanigans. It’s tough to forget the three-month suspension handed to Diaz after he brawled with Jason “Mayhem” Miller after an event in Nashville, or the six-month breather he received after testing positive for marijuana following a 2007 victory over Takanori Gomi (later changed to a no contest).
He has, for now, proven himself to be a rather unreliable fighter. But that begs the question: Is he the most unreliable fighter in all of MMA?
Short answer: no.
Fighters can be unreliable for all sorts of reasons. Take Alistair Overeem, who earlier this year backed out of the Strikeforce heavyweight tournament because the next fight, he claimed, came too soon after his previous fight.
Only 10 days before a highly anticipated fight with Fedor Emelianenko, heavyweight Josh Barnett was pulled from the bout after failing a drug test. Forty-eight hours before he was scheduled to walk to the cage to face Dustin Hazelett, welterweight Karo Parisyan failed to show up for weigh-ins, offering what UFC president Dana White said was “a laundry list of excuses.”
And then there is perhaps the most formidable demon of unreliability: the dicey weight cut. Few fans have forgiven Travis Lutter for failing to make weight for a 2007 title bout with middleweight champ Anderson Silva. But Thiago Alves might be the recent king of the missed weight cuts, with two of his last six fights going to catchweight after he failed to drop the requisite poundage.
There are plenty of other fighters and reasons you could throw into the mix. Despite this litany of offenders, however, the argument could be made that Diaz is just as bad as any of them. But there is one thing preventing Diaz from taking the unequivocal crown for unreliability.
Two words: Paulo Filho.
Filho first pulled out of a bout in 2008, when he missed a rematch with Chael Sonnen at WEC 33 after checking into a substance rehab facility shortly before the fight.
The match was rescheduled for WEC 36. This time, Filho made it, but failed to make weight. The fight went on as scheduled, though Filho was disoriented throughout and did not fight well, to put it mildly.
This would likely have spelled curtains for another, less-talented fighter, but Filho’s upside earned him another chance. A 2009 fight for the DREAM promotion went off without a hitch, with Filho submitting Melvin Manhoef for the win.
Unfortunately, Filho’s streak of non-controversial fights ended at one when, in October of that year, he simply failed to show up for a match with Yoon Dong-Sik.
In a February 2010 fight with Yuki Sasaki, Filho withdrew from the match, then reinstated himself. Then he skipped the weigh-ins. Fight cancelled.
But wait—there’s more! In May 2010, Filho pulled out of a fight with Bellator middleweight belt-holder Hector Lombard for alleged visa issues.
He seems to have gotten his act together since then, but has won only two of six.
To summarize: Is Diaz an unreliable fighter right now? You bet. Would I book him for any fight of consequence? Nope.
But is he the most unreliable MMA fighter walking the planet today? Not as long as Paulo Filho’s still around.
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