Nick Diaz’s manager Cesar Gracie wants him to fight Jorge Masvidal next. Diaz hasn’t fought since January 2015 but recently hinted at coming back and facing Masvidal. He particularly took offense as Masvidal’s comments stating that he wanted to baptize Nate Diaz at UFC 244 earlier this month. However, in that interview, Diaz was not […]
Nick Diaz’s manager Cesar Gracie wants him to fight Jorge Masvidal next.
Diaz hasn’t fought since January 2015 but recently hinted at coming back and facing Masvidal. He particularly took offense as Masvidal’s comments stating that he wanted to baptize Nate Diaz at UFC 244 earlier this month.
However, in that interview, Diaz was not coherent and all over the place, leading to many not wanting him to return to the Octagon. His manager Gracie felt the same thing but having spoken to Diaz recently, feels he’s got the fire back.
And so, he is now all-in for a Diaz vs. Masvidal fight:
“Talking to him yesterday, I felt like he’s got the fire back,” Gracie said on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show on Monday. “We’re coordinating some good stuff. … I want to see him fight Masvidal. That’s my thing. I want that fight to happen and I kind of relayed that to him.
“… Every fight he’s ever had I’ve had some sort of participation if you will. So this one, I’m like ‘hey man, this is the guy I want you to fight. I want you to fight this guy, Masvidal.’ So we’ll see how Nick is with everything. If I get my way, that’s the fight we’ll set up.”
Do you think we’re one step closer to seeing Diaz vs. Masvidal?
The problem with being an entitled, misogynistic a-hole who views women not as fellow human beings but as property for the taking is, well, everything I just wrote, but also, it can really come back to bite (as well as punch, kick, and elbow) you in the ass.
Take, for example, the entitled, misogynistic a-hole who thought it was well within his privilege to grab a woman’s…posterior outside San Francisco club with a group of friends. Unfortunately for that fellow, that woman happened to be UFC bantamweight contender Leslie Smith, who was entering said club with TUF 20 alum Heather Clark. Suffice it to say, things did not end well for this man.
The entire hilarious story — which begins with “scumbag” and ends with “running soccer kick to the groin” — is after the jump, via Cesar Gracie’s Facebook.
The problem with being an entitled, misogynistic a-hole who views women not as fellow human beings but as property for the taking is, well, everything I just wrote, but also, it can really come back to bite (as well as punch, kick, and elbow) you in the ass.
Take, for example, the entitled, misogynistic a-hole who thought it was well within his privilege to grab a woman’s…posterior outside San Francisco club with a group of friends. Unfortunately for that fellow, that woman happened to be UFC bantamweight contender Leslie Smith, who was entering said club with TUF 20 alum Heather Clark. Suffice it to say, things did not end well for this man.
The entire hilarious story — which begins with “scumbag” and ends with “running soccer kick to the groin” — is after the jump, via Cesar Gracie’s Facebook.
Dirtbag decides to sexually harass group of females. What he didn’t know was that 2 of the women were MMA fighters currently in the UFC.
While going out to a club in San Francisco, a malcontent male decided to cop a feel of a female entering the club. The female turned to her friend, current UFC fighter, Leslie Smith and exclaimed, “that guy just grabbed my a$$”.
Leslie approached the man and said, “hey you can’t do that” at which point the larger male responded, “f@ck you I can do whatever I want”
Leslie retorted, no muthaf@cker you can’t”
At this point the man became irate and spat on Leslie’s face. He then proceeded to take a punch at what he thought would be an indefensible woman
Wrong
Leslie ducked the punch and shot in for a takedown. She quickly got to the mans back and applied a choke but decided he needed some elbow strikes and punches to learn a valuable lesson.
The man unable to fend off the better fighter, desperately grabbed at Leslie’s hair and in vain resorted to fighting like a girl.
Approaching the melee was Leslie’s friend and Miesha Tate training partner, UFC fighter Heather Clark.
Heather, without missing a beat, delivered a running soccer kick to the man’s nether regions.
Leslie again achieved mount and delivered a series of elbows until the man, now having his face looking more like hamburger meat, yelled out that he was sorry and that he respected them. At this point Leslie disengaged and allowed the man to get up and go. He left having learned a valuable lesson and the women returned to the club.
I’d like to think that this guy learned a valuable lesson too, Cesar, but I have the strangest inkling that anyone arrogant enough to grab a woman’s ass, then spit in her face for calling him out on it, is well beyond the “learning lessons” stage of life.
Smith later corroborated the story, stating that “I’d be second guessing myself and my judgement if I had been drinking but I wasn’t. I can’t say I would be able to avoid the violence if given the chance to play it out. I was morally compelled to tell the man that my friend’s butt (in a pair of jean btw) was not public property for him to grope at will and then he spit and swung on me. I feel like I stuck to my policy of non initiation of violence while also standing up for what I know is right.”
Bellator has reached terms with top UFC lightweight Gilbert Melendez, in what would be the Viacom-owned promotion’s highest profile signing to date if they can wrest “El Niño” from Zuffa.
Notice the word, “if.”
Find out what the deal is after the jump.
(Photo via Getty)
Bellator and top UFC lightweight Gilbert Melendez have agreed to terms in what would be the Viacom-owned promotion’s highest profile signing to date—if they can wrest “El Niño” from Zuffa, that is.
While Bellator and Melendez have an agreement (rumored to be $200k per fight, PPV points, a $25k signing bonus, Spike TV show appearances, AND a role in a Viacom movie), the UFC still holds the rights to match Bellator’s offer. But if the whispers are true, that might be a tall order.
The schism between Melendez and the UFC was made apparent earlier this week when Dana Whitegriped about Melendez’s contract renegotiation.
“It’s not going well,” White told MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani. “I couldn’t care less about it anymore. I like Gilbert Melendez, I don’t like his management.” White was referring to Rodolphe Beaulieu—Georges St-Pierre’s manager who also manages Melendez. White also advised Melendez to start looking for a job elsewhere. Apparently he heeded White’s counsel. Other Cesar Gracie fighters might start doing the same, if a tweet (which has since been deleted) by Gracie himself is anything to go by.
Melendez informed the world via twitter that he’d divulge more details as soon as plans were settled.
If Melendez finds himself in Bellator, it’ll be a landmark signing for MMA’s perennial runner-up—the first time they poached a relevant, top-10, still-in-his-prime fighter from the UFC. Bellator’s two previous biggest signings—Rampage Jackson and Tito Ortiz—elicited laughs from the media. Successfully bringing Melendez into the fold will do no such thing.
(Or, y’all could just keep sitting on that couch. It’s whatever, dude. / Illustration via prebek)
Update:According to MMAFighting, Dana White is denying that he made any sort of bout offer “to Gracie or anyone else that reps Nick.” Huh. Maybe Cesar Gracie has fallen victim to the same mysterious troll that’s been offering Bellator contracts to people? Or maybe Dana just doesn’t like when managers tell tales out of school, so to speak.
Then, after losing a not-close-at-all decision to St. Pierre in March, Diaz said once more that he was done fighting. Now, just a few months from that apparent retirement, Diaz is all angst-ed up from a recent split with a gal and ready to fight again.
The welterweight veteran sent a public message to Dana White a couple weeks ago and now, according to his manager, Diaz is considering an offer from the UFC. Cesar Gracie wouldn’t say who the offer is against during an interview with BJPenn.com, only that the proposed fight is “kind of neat, I think. But no decisions have been made for sure.”
Whoa, long time since we had a “neat” fight in the UFC. Way to hype this possibility up, Cesar.
(Or, y’all could just keep sitting on that couch. It’s whatever, dude. / Illustration via prebek)
Update:According to MMAFighting, Dana White is denying that he made any sort of bout offer “to Gracie or anyone else that reps Nick.” Huh. Maybe Cesar Gracie has fallen victim to the same mysterious troll that’s been offering Bellator contracts to people? Or maybe Dana just doesn’t like when managers tell tales out of school, so to speak.
Then, after losing a not-close-at-all decision to St. Pierre in March, Diaz said once more that he was done fighting. Now, just a few months from that apparent retirement, Diaz is all angst-ed up from a recent split with a gal and ready to fight again.
The welterweight veteran sent a public message to Dana White a couple weeks ago and now, according to his manager, Diaz is considering an offer from the UFC. Cesar Gracie wouldn’t say who the offer is against during an interview with BJPenn.com, only that the proposed fight is ”kind of neat, I think. But no decisions have been made for sure.”
Whoa, long time since we had a “neat” fight in the UFC. Way to hype this possibility up, Cesar.
But seriously, what opponents would be kind of neat for Diaz at this point, Nation? We’re assuming he isn’t getting the middleweight or welterweight shot that he wants coming off of two straight losses.
But there are several top welterweights out there right now who Diaz could take on. Demian Maia, for example, needs an opponent and would make for a fascinating “who’s got better BJJ for MMA” matchup. Tarec Saffiedine could provide a fun, “Strikeforce Neva Die” bout. Diaz could also get rag-dolled by Josh Koscheck for three straight rounds and bring “Kos” back into the top tier.
What match up do you think will happen if Diaz re-ups with the UFC, taters? This writer is betting on/hoping for Diaz vs. Maia, which we already signed off on in April.
(Vierra is standing third from the right in the black gi, next to Cesar Gracie. / Photo via MixedMartialArts.com)
Following the conclusion of UFC on FOX 7 on Saturday, many die-hard fight fans switched their dials to Showtime to watch the WBA light-middleweight title fight between rising boxing star Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez and Austin Trout. Though Trout arguably won a majority of the early rounds, the fight’s “open-scoring” system revealed that the judges were in the bag for Alvarez from the beginning. When the match was over, the scores came back unanimously for the 22-year-old ginger: 115-112, 116-111 and a completely batshit 118-109 from judge Stanley Christodoulou. As usual, we MMA types used the opportunity to take potshots at boxing’s endemic corruption.
Alright, so get a load of this shit: Late Saturday night, Ben Henderson’s brother pointed out that Wade Vierra — the dissenting judge in Henderson’s split-decision win over Gilbert Melendez — is a “Master Instructor” for the GracieFighter network, and runs a Cesar Gracie affiliate school in Roseville, California. Considering that Melendez is a well-known Cesar Gracie product, the conflict-of-interest alarms should have been ringing for the California State Athletic Commission, and Vierra shouldn’t have been allowed to judge the fight. But the CSAC didn’t catch it, or didn’t care, or hey, maybe they were in on it. Either way, Bendo’s special night was put in jeopardy.
When judging controversies happen in MMA, fans usually chalk it up to ignorance rather than corruption. But when ignorance from MMA judges and commissions is allowed to exist indefinitely, that is corruption — it’s a corruption of the sport’s legitimacy, even if nobody’s directly profiting from it. Obviously, the UFC lightweight title fight was so close that Vierra’s 48-47 tally for Melendez was much more defensible than Christodoulou’s 118-109 for Canelo. Still, the incident gave the UFC event an appearance of commission malfeasance that reflects very poorly on the promotion and the sport in general. (Was somebody paid off to allow Vierra a spot on the judges’ table? Or is the CSAC just that inept?)
It’s a good thing Henderson won. Otherwise, we might have had a scandal on our hands.
(Vierra is standing third from the right in the black gi, next to Cesar Gracie. / Photo via MixedMartialArts.com)
Following the conclusion of UFC on FOX 7 on Saturday, many die-hard fight fans switched their dials to Showtime to watch the WBA light-middleweight title fight between rising boxing star Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez and Austin Trout. Though Trout arguably won a majority of the early rounds, the fight’s “open-scoring” system revealed that the judges were in the bag for Alvarez from the beginning. When the match was over, the scores came back unanimously for the 22-year-old ginger: 115-112, 116-111 and a completely batshit 118-109 from judge Stanley Christodoulou. As usual, we MMA types used the opportunity to take potshots at boxing’s endemic corruption.
Alright, so get a load of this shit: Late Saturday night, Ben Henderson’s brother pointed out that Wade Vierra — the dissenting judge in Henderson’s split-decision win over Gilbert Melendez — is a “Master Instructor” for the GracieFighter network, and runs a Cesar Gracie affiliate school in Roseville, California. Considering that Melendez is a well-known Cesar Gracie product, the conflict-of-interest alarms should have been ringing for the California State Athletic Commission, and Vierra shouldn’t have been allowed to judge the fight. But the CSAC didn’t catch it, or didn’t care, or hey, maybe they were in on it. Either way, Bendo’s special night was put in jeopardy.
When judging controversies happen in MMA, fans usually chalk it up to ignorance rather than corruption. But when ignorance from MMA judges and commissions is allowed to exist indefinitely, that is corruption — it’s a corruption of the sport’s legitimacy, even if nobody’s directly profiting from it. Obviously, the UFC lightweight title fight was so close that Vierra’s 48-47 tally for Melendez was much more defensible than Christodoulou’s 118-109 for Canelo. Still, the incident gave the UFC event an appearance of commission malfeasance that reflects very poorly on the promotion and the sport in general. (Was somebody paid off to allow Vierra a spot on the judges’ table? Or is the CSAC just that inept?)
It’s a good thing Henderson won. Otherwise, we might have had a scandal on our hands.
When Nick Diaz starting lobbing accusations of negligence at his own team during the UFC 158 post-fight press conference last month — a team that prides themselves on a wolfpack-like sense of loyalty if nothing else — we initially wrote it off as little more than the fleeting words of a man grasping at straws to save his MMA career. Nick’s attitude regarding his most recent retirement only drove this notion home. That being said, it was hard not to at least speculate that Diaz’s longtime coach/manager/muzzle, Cesar Gracie, could be at least partially responsible for the Stocktonian’s ongoing troubles over the years. Dana White seemed to agree, calling Gracie “a dick” who “plays bullshit games.”
And indeed, it appears that even the members of Team Cesar Gracie are starting to grow tired of his shit, as it was recently announced that former lightweight title challenger Nate Diaz has left the team — managerially, at least — for greener pastures (via MMAMania):
According to a report from Ariel Helwani on Tuesday’s (April 9, 2013) edition of “UFC Tonight” on FUEL TV, the Stockton, Calif., native has enlisted the management services of Mike Kogan, who heads Real Talk Entertainment, representing notable names such as UFC heavyweight Roy Nelson and former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Muhammed Lawal, among others.
When Nick Diaz starting lobbing accusations of negligence at his own team during the UFC 158 post-fight press conference last month — a team that prides themselves on a wolfpack-like sense of loyalty if nothing else — we initially wrote it off as little more than the fleeting words of a man grasping at straws to save his MMA career. Nick’s attitude regarding his most recent retirement only drove this notion home. That being said, it was hard not to at least speculate that Diaz’s longtime coach/manager/muzzle, Cesar Gracie, could be at least partially responsible for the Stocktonian’s ongoing troubles over the years. Dana White seemed to agree, calling Gracie “a dick” who “plays bullshit games.”
And indeed, it appears that even the members of Team Cesar Gracie are starting to grow tired of his shit, as it was recently announced that former lightweight title challenger Nate Diaz has left the team — managerially, at least — for greener pastures (via MMAMania):
According to a report from Ariel Helwani on Tuesday’s (April 9, 2013) edition of “UFC Tonight” on FUEL TV, the Stockton, Calif., native has enlisted the management services of Mike Kogan, who heads Real Talk Entertainment, representing notable names such as UFC heavyweight Roy Nelson and former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Muhammed Lawal, among others.
As noted by several sources currently reporting on Diaz’s defection, Nate will still train with Cesar and friends, but that will be where their professional relationship begins and ends moving forward.
While we imagine that most sane people would recognize that Nate is simply protecting his best interests (don’t worry, we’ve got you covered), if his brother thought Team Gracie was being neglectful before, just imagine how they’re going to treat Nate now that he’s essentially deemed them too incompetent to continue managing his career.
