Remember when Nick Diaz was booked for the biggest fight of his career in a title shot against Georges St. Pierre, but then decided to no-show two days in a row for media events? Or when he lost an interim title bout to Carlos Condit, was offered an immediate rematch but then couldn’t do the fight because he got high?
Well, we do, and chances are Diaz does as well since he’s been sitting on the sidelines for nearly a year serving out his most recent marijuana-related drug suspension. So it surprised us to hear that Diaz, who is receiving a world title shot for the third consecutive time despite coming off of a loss and failed drug test suspension, still seems to be walking the line with the UFC and its President Dana White.
MiddleEasy recently spoke with White and asked him if he expected Diaz to make good on his pre-event promotion commitments this time around before his scheduled fight with St. Pierre at UFC 158. “He’s been sitting out so long. This is a fight that he wanted. He really wanted this fight to happen and Georges St. Pierre called him out. He’s getting it. So, yes, I expect Diaz to be there,” White said.
When asked if he had actually received such an assurance from Diaz himself, however, Diaz said that he had not even spoken with the fighter recently despite reaching out to him. “I have not. Nick Diaz doesn’t return my calls, texts, nothing,” he said.
Remember when Nick Diaz was booked for the biggest fight of his career in a title shot against Georges St. Pierre, but then decided to no-show two days in a row for media events? Or when he lost an interim title bout to Carlos Condit, was offered an immediate rematch but then couldn’t do the fight because he got high?
Well, we do, and chances are Diaz does as well since he’s been sitting on the sidelines for nearly a year serving out his most recent marijuana-related drug suspension. So it surprised us to hear that Diaz, who is receiving a world title shot for the third consecutive time despite coming off of a loss and failed drug test suspension, still seems to be walking the line with the UFC and its President Dana White.
MiddleEasy recently spoke with White and asked him if he expected Diaz to make good on his pre-event promotion commitments this time around before his scheduled fight with St. Pierre at UFC 158. “He’s been sitting out so long. This is a fight that he wanted. He really wanted this fight to happen and Georges St. Pierre called him out. He’s getting it. So, yes, I expect Diaz to be there,” White said.
When asked if he had actually received such an assurance from Diaz himself, however, White said that he had not even spoken with the fighter recently despite reaching out to him. “I have not. Nick Diaz doesn’t return my calls, texts, nothing,” he said.
Nick Diaz isn’t faking this shtick, ladies and gentlemen. The Stockton Brawler really, truly, does not give damn about propriety or niceties, even with his bosses.
White didn’t seem to take Diaz’s neglect personally. In fact, he seemed to relish the opportunity to promote such a genuine anti-hero, at least as long as Diaz does his part with promotion. If he doesn’t, White said that he could very well not just missing out on another big fight but also be cut from the UFC roster.
“You don’t have to call me. You don’t have to text me. But you do have to show up to the press conference,” White said.
“I would be blown away if he did it twice…he’s not a big fan of the pre fight promotion but you have to do it. You have to do it. Whether you’re Nick Diaz, you’re Anderson Silva, whoever you are. Its in your contract. You can actually be cut. We can cut you for that.”
As you can probably tell by now, my New Year’s resolution was to use more hyperlinks. SUCK IT, TOUCH PHONE USERS!
Aaanyway, Junior couldn’t even make it to the hospital before he was bombarded by SporTV, who thought the best time to ask a professional fighter strategy-based questions was while he was determining how much blood he had lost just hours earlier. You know, kind of like how CNN often waits until a soldier in Iraq steps on a landmine to drill him on the ins and outs of The Pincer Movement. Junior’s broken English response was as you would expect:
It (he) was better and deserved to win, but I used the wrong strategy. I was very worried about his entry in my legs and left face unprotected. So he hit me. When I was on the floor, I should have used more jiu-jitsu, I trained so much. But I tried to (get) back up, and it hurt me too, but on the ground it (he) is very good, very strong. I did not connect any punches good, even. It was bad because I was feeling very well, did a great training camp, everything was just right. But the fight is (over) anyway.
(“Don’t worry, Junior! I can see him growing weaker with every punch! Three more rounds of this and he’ll be all yours!” / Photo via Getty Images)
As you can probably tell by now, my New Year’s resolution was to use more hyperlinks. SUCK IT, TOUCH PHONE USERS!
Aaanyway, Junior couldn’t even make it to the hospital before he was bombarded by SporTV, who thought the best time to ask a professional fighter strategy-based questions was while he was determining how much blood he had lost just hours earlier. You know, kind of like how CNN often waits until a soldier in Iraq steps on a landmine to drill him on the ins and outs of The Pincer Movement. Junior’s broken English response was as you would expect:
It (he) was better and deserved to win, but I used the wrong strategy. I was very worried about his entry in my legs and left face unprotected. So he hit me. When I was on the floor, I should have used more jiu-jitsu, I trained so much. But I tried to (get) back up, and it hurt me too, but on the ground it (he) is very good, very strong. I did not connect any punches good, even. It was bad because I was feeling very well, did a great training camp, everything was just right. But the fight is (over) anyway.
Ahh, the modern marvel that is Google Translate. If you were to read that statement on its own, it would sound like the woeful tale of Monica Belluci’s character in Irreversible, but thanks to fabulous, space age technology, the man labeled as simply “Gypsy” was able to offer such eloquent expressions as “I had no fracture, I’m just bloated. ’m Beautiful?”
Yes Junior, you are beautiful, no matter what they say. And words can’t bring you down, oh, no. So we won’t bring you down today.
Unfortunately for Junior, the words of Dana White might bring him down a notch or two, as The Baldfather stated in the aftermath of UFC 155 that the Dos Santos/Velasquez rubber match, although intriguing, will not be happening in the foreseeable future:
I think trilogies are always awesome, especially when both these fights went the way that they did. I mean, I want to see the third fight. It will be interesting.
But this isn’t like losing a regular fight. He got beat up pretty bad. It usually takes a little longer to recover from what he went through.
Honestly, it’s hard to disagree with White here. Velasquez was the victim of a one-shot KO in the pair’s first meeting — one that came after a ridiculous slew of injuries — and he still had to destroy something…uh…what’s the word I’m looking for here…well, he had to beat down Antonio Silva before he got his rematch. To assume that Dos Santos would receive an immediate rematch after being thrashed for five straight rounds would be preposterous to say the least. Then again, crazier things have happened.
Oh, MMA in 2013, please tell us that you’ll be different than you were in 2012. Because unlike Chris Leben, I can’t just mock you on Twitter while silently masking how depressing your plight has truly become.
If any of you were questioning Gilbert Melendez’s decision to remain off Strikeforce’s final card in January, maybe now you can see his motivation. In a recent interview with MMAJunkie, Dana White revealed that “El Nino” would “probably” receive an immediate title shot when he makes the trip over to the UFC, a statement that will more than likely be responsible for hundreds of conspiracy theories regarding the legitimacy of Melendez’s recent injuries. Of course, this came just before The Baldfather lamented about how bad Strikeforce fighters have had it since the UFC absorbed the promotion (presumably while mimicking Shooter McGavin), so perhaps we should take his statement with a grain of salt:
(Melendez will) probably come right in and get a title shot. Again, we’ll see.
What has happened to the fighters in Strikeforce is horrible. The way this thing went down is horrible, and they’ve been very patient. What’s happened over there has been completely s—ty.
Right, and we’re sure Hitler felt awfully bad about the living conditions at Auschwitz as well. “No veigh? Zey don’t even get a nice cot to szleep on? Zose bastards!” We’re not comparing Dana White to Hitler, we’re just saying.
If any of you were questioning Gilbert Melendez’s decision to remain off Strikeforce’s final card in January, maybe now you can see his motivation. In a recent interview with MMAJunkie, Dana White revealed that “El Nino” would “probably” receive an immediate title shot when he makes the trip over to the UFC, a statement that will more than likely be responsible for hundreds of conspiracy theories regarding the legitimacy of Melendez’s recent injuries. Of course, this came just before The Baldfather lamented about how bad Strikeforce fighters have had it since the UFC absorbed the promotion (presumably while mimicking Shooter McGavin), so perhaps we should take his statement with a grain of salt:
(Melendez will) probably come right in and get a title shot. Again, we’ll see.
What has happened to the fighters in Strikeforce is horrible. The way this thing went down is horrible, and they’ve been very patient. What’s happened over there has been completely s—ty.
Right, and we’re sure Hitler felt awfully bad about the living conditions at Auschwitz as well. “No veigh? Zey don’t even get a nice cot to szleep on? Zose bastards!” We’re not comparing Dana White to Hitler, we’re just saying.
On a serious note, this statement is interesting for a multitude of reasons, the first of which being how unknown a guy like Melendez is to casual fans, who are the only people the UFC seems interested in promoting fights for nowadays. As Melendez has stated in the past, the “Champion vs. Champion” angle is one that the UFC could easily market, but I mean, Melendez isn’t even coming off a loss for Christ’s sake, and now you’re gonna say he’s title shot worthy? Bitch please; I think we all know that Tiequan Zhang is the next rightful challenger to the lightweight throne.
Are you Taters excited at the idea of Henderson/Melendez, or do you think he should be given a tune up fight first?
24/7 or a UFC Prime Time it ain’t, but Fox has put together some decent Countdown documentary/promo shows together. The newest one, looking towards this weekend’s UFC 155, features a look at the careers and camps of former heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez and current title holder Junior Dos Santos.
In the video, Cain talks about the lessons he learned as a college athlete that he feels will help him avenge his loss to Dos Santos. Dos Santos discusses the challenge of keeping Cain off of him and preventing him from using his All-American wrestling skills to stymie the Brazilian’s dangerous punches.
Also on the Countdown to UFC 155, Joe Lauzon and Jim Miller exchange smack talk and promises as they discuss their lightweight contender fight. If you’re lucky enough to still be sitting on your ass, stuffed with food sit back and enjoy watching pro athletes train harder in a single day of training than you ever have.
24/7 or a UFC Prime Time it ain’t, but Fox has put together some decent Countdown documentary/promo shows together. The newest one, looking towards this weekend’s UFC 155, features a look at the careers and camps of former heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez and current title holder Junior Dos Santos.
In the video, Cain talks about the lessons he learned as a college athlete that he feels will help him avenge his loss to Dos Santos. Dos Santos discusses the challenge of keeping Cain off of him and preventing him from using his All-American wrestling skills to stymie the Brazilian’s dangerous punches.
Also on the Countdown to UFC 155, Joe Lauzon and Jim Miller exchange smack talk and promises as they discuss their lightweight contender fight. If you’re lucky enough to still be sitting on your ass, stuffed with food sit back and enjoy watching pro athletes train harder in a single day of training than you ever have.
In a recent interview with our home girl Steph Daniels over at Bloody Elbow, Strikeforce middleweight Tim Kennedy expressed his displeasure with any number of items, ranging from gun control to fighters using steroids in both intentionally and unintentionally hilarious ways. An intentional example being when he tells fighters who use banned performance enhancing drugs to “stop injecting horse cum into your eye.” An unintentionally hilarious example being his weird rant about gun control and how the only way he can prevent his wife from being raped and killed in their home is if the federal ban on assault rifles is not reinstated by the U.S. Congress.
Our favorite awkward holier than thou moments in this excellent interview with Kennedy, however, came when the fighter criticized other Strikeforce fighters who have pulled out of the organization’s last few scheduled events due to injuries and when he claimed that Ronda Rousey has it easier in MMA because she’s a woman.
“Maybe [the injuries are real], maybe they aren’t,” Kennedy told Bloody Elbow.
“It’s pathetic and convenient for every single marquee fighter in all of Strikeforce, that we all know to be going over to the UFC, are pulling out of their fights, two weeks before the final card. It’s like, are you guys fighters, or are you just a bunch of little vaginas?”
On that subject, Kennedy also apparently has a problem with Strikeforce 135 pound women’s champ Ronda Rousey being made the first UFC 135 women’s champion.
(Takes one to know one?)
In a recent interview with our home girl Steph Daniels over at Bloody Elbow, Strikeforce middleweight Tim Kennedy expressed his displeasure with any number of items, ranging from gun control to fighters using steroids in both intentionally and unintentionally hilarious ways. An intentional example being when he tells fighters who use banned performance enhancing drugs to “stop injecting horse cum into your eye.” An unintentionally hilarious example being his weird rant about gun control and how the only way he can prevent his wife from being raped and killed in their home is if the federal ban on assault rifles is not reinstated by the U.S. Congress.
Our favorite awkward holier than thou moments in this excellent interview with Kennedy, however, came when the fighter criticized other Strikeforce fighters who have pulled out of the organization’s last few scheduled events due to injuries and when he claimed that Ronda Rousey has it easier in MMA because she’s a woman.
“Maybe [the injuries are real], maybe they aren’t,” Kennedy told Bloody Elbow.
“It’s pathetic and convenient for every single marquee fighter in all of Strikeforce, that we all know to be going over to the UFC, are pulling out of their fights, two weeks before the final card. It’s like, are you guys fighters, or are you just a bunch of little vaginas?”
On that subject, Kennedy also apparently has a problem with Strikeforce 135 pound women’s champ Ronda Rousey being made the first UFC 135 women’s champion.
“It’s kind of sexist that a girl that has six professional fights, gets a double standard her very first fight in the UFC. She gets to fight for the title,” Kennedy said, presumably with a straight face, somehow.
“Guys like Luke Rockhold and Nate Marquardt are going to have to come over and fight a contender, then they’ll be allowed to fight for a title if they win. She, of course, can come over, and her first fight is defending her UFC title.”
Yeah, it will be, Tim. The same way it was for Jose Aldo after the UFC merged the WEC into itself. Ronda, like Aldo before her, was the champion of a division that did not previously exist in the UFC. Of course she’s automatically the champion of the division once it has been merged into the UFC.
Rockhold and Marquardt, on the other hand, are coming into organization divisions that already exist and have champions. But please tell us more about how easy it is for women to break into the high levels of professional fighting and how they get preferential treatment over men, Tim.
We can’t blame Kennedy for being so mad, though. He’s in the middle of a no doubt grueling training camp for a fight, he hasn’t gotten to fight very often a midst Strikeforce’s mess, and President Obama wants to take all his guns away so that his wife and family can be killed by a talkative home invader.
Even though he whines, like all the time and about everything, we still love Tim Kennedy because he’s a hell of a fighter and one funny dude. Hopefully he takes care of business on January 12th and gets brought into the UFC where he belongs.
Maybe he can challenge Ronda Rousey for her paper title…
(Caution: This conference call was apparently recorded in a tin can headed straight for Pluto. Adjust speakers accordingly.)
For a guy who is supposed to be defending his title against Cain Velasquez in just over a week at UFC 155, heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos still seems awfully focused on Alistair Overeem, the man he was set to face back at UFC 146 before…well, you know. During the UFC 155 media call (full audio above), dos Santos touched on the respect he had for Velasquez as a professional, but not without taking a dig at Overeem in the process:
I prefer to fight against clean athletes and real professionals. Cain Velasquez is one of these guys. He’s a real professional fighter and that’s a good challenge for me. I know he’s very tough and I know how hard I have to train to face him. And the OTHER GUYS, they just say things, but there’s nothing behind the words. Guys like me and Cain Velasquez, we are made at the gym. Guys like the OTHER GUY there, they are made in the laboratory.
Ahh…the Lord Voldemort approach of anonymity. Touche, Junior.
(Caution: This conference call was apparently recorded in a tin can headed straight for Pluto. Adjust speakers accordingly.)
For a guy who is supposed to be defending his title against Cain Velasquez in just over a week at UFC 155, heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos still seems awfully focused on Alistair Overeem, the man he was set to face back at UFC 146 before…well, you know. During the UFC 155 media call (full audio above), dos Santos touched on the respect he had for Velasquez as a professional, but not without taking a dig at Overeem in the process:
I prefer to fight against clean athletes and real professionals. Cain Velasquez is one of these guys. He’s a real professional fighter and that’s a good challenge for me. I know he’s very tough and I know how hard I have to train to face him. And the OTHER GUYS, they just say things, but there’s nothing behind the words. Guys like me and Cain Velasquez, we are made at the gym. Guys like the OTHER GUY there, they are made in the laboratory.
Ahh…the Lord Voldemort approach of anonymity. Touche, Junior.
All kidding aside, Junior has repeatedly stated that he would have preferred to face Overeem next instead of rematching Velasquez, even begging Dana White for the fight at one point. And while he was able to dispatch Velasquez with ease the first time around, does anyone think he might be looking past Cain here?
And while we’re talking UFC 155, we’d like to throw a little feeler out there for you guys to stew over. Greater chance of ending in a knockout: Dos Santos vs. Velasquez or Leben vs. Brunson?
