Last month, Jay Hieron (23-5 MMA, 0-2 UFC) was days away from making his return to the UFC for the first time in seven years when the proverbial rug was pulled out from under him. The now infamous series of events that resulted in the cancelation of UFC 151 left Heiron and others out in the cold as he was prepared to face Jake Ellenberger in a welterweight showdown that marked his first fight in the Octagon since 2005. But while many of the fighters on the 151 card panicked and wondered when and if they’d get the opportunity to fight again, Hieron took it in stride, patiently waited, and was rescheduled to face Ellenberger at UFC on FX 5: Browne vs. Bigfoot this Friday, October 5.
The Las Vegas-based fighter has been in this situation before. He was supposed to fight on the Affliction: Trilogy card in 2009 that ended up being canned, and a Strikeforce welterweight title shot against Nick Diaz later that year was shuttered after Diaz failed to get licensed by the California State Athletic Commission. It’s like Hieron walked under a ladder and broke a mirror while a black cat crossed his path.
“People were saying that I am cursed,” the Xtreme Couture fighter says with a hearty laugh. “At the end of the day, if there isn’t a twist on it for me then something isn’t right. I’ve learned to embrace all these things that surround the fight game. I’m never surprised.”
So, seriously, what’s a few more weeks when you’ve waited seven long years since your last UFC fight?
(Just remember, Jay — no matter how many setbacks you suffer in life, there are still people who are much, much worse off than you are.)
Last month, Jay Hieron (23-5 MMA, 0-2 UFC) was days away from making his return to the UFC for the first time in seven years when the proverbial rug was pulled out from under him. The now infamous series of events that resulted in the cancelation of UFC 151 left Heiron and others out in the cold as he was prepared to face Jake Ellenberger in a welterweight showdown that marked his first fight in the Octagon since 2005. But while many of the fighters on the 151 card panicked and wondered when and if they’d get the opportunity to fight again, Hieron took it in stride, patiently waited, and was rescheduled to face Ellenberger at UFC on FX 5: Browne vs. Bigfoot this Friday, October 5.
The Las Vegas-based fighter has been in this situation before. He was supposed to fight on the Affliction: Trilogy card in 2009 that ended up being canned, and a Strikeforce welterweight title shot against Nick Diaz later that year was shuttered after Diaz failed to get licensed by the California State Athletic Commission. It’s like Hieron walked under a ladder and broke a mirror while a black cat crossed his path.
“People were saying that I am cursed,” the Xtreme Couture fighter says with a hearty laugh. “At the end of the day, if there isn’t a twist on it for me then something isn’t right. I’ve learned to embrace all these things that surround the fight game. I’m never surprised.”
So, seriously, what’s a few more weeks when you’ve waited seven long years since your last UFC fight?
“I was ready to go before but the postponement just meant I had more time to prepare,” Hieron says about the extra month he has had to wait before making his return to the Octagon. “I don’t want to say it’s a good thing, but I’ve been through that before. Of course I was a little down because it was here in Vegas, but at the end of the day it’s out of my control.”
Hieron’s last UFC appearance — a TKO-due-to-cut loss to Jonathan Goulet in October 2005 — took place well before the sport boomed into the worldwide phenomenon that it is today. Put it like this, the last time Hieron fought in the UFC, Jon Jones was an 18-year-old who had no idea what his future would hold for him, while Anderson Silva was far from the best pound for pound fighter in the world, as he was fresh off of a flying scissor heel hook from Ryo Chonan. Hieron is 37-years old now and promises that he’s a far different fighter than the one who went 0-2 in the UFC a lifetime ago. Despite the long wait, Hieron feels that the timing couldn’t be better.
“My career has taken me in different directions,” he says about his MMA stints in promotions including Bellator, Strikeforce, and the IFL. “A lot of guys aren’t blessed to make money outside of the UFC but I have and I’ve been able to get better. I could have been back for sure but I went for title shots with Diaz and money in other circumstances. Now couldn’t be any better, the timing is perfect.”
Standing across the cage from him will be a familiar face. Back in 2006, Jay Hieron handed Jake Ellenberger his first professional loss. More recently, Hieron cornered Martin Kampmann’s stunning comeback knockout victory over Ellenberger at The Ultimate Fighter finale this past June. “We know each other, it’s no secret,” he says about Ellenberger being his ticket back into the UFC. “But even though I won the last time I know that he’s gotten better. However, I’m a totally different fighter as well.”
In the back of his mind, Jay Hieron knows that this may be his last stand in the UFC. At the age of 37, very few chances are left and he’s looking to make the most out of this opportunity on October 5 because his window is closing rapidly.
“There’s only one Randy Couture, but I’ll fight as long as my body lets me,” Hieron says while noting that he feels better than he ever has. “I do everything to keep my body fresh and I have taken little punishment in my career. There will be a time when I will have to step back because you can’t outrun father time, but right now, I feel awesome. I still feel like I have my best years ahead of me and this is where I want to finish my career.”
All he has to do is take out Ellenberger in Friday’s co-main event in Minneapolis, MN.
“I’m definitely looking for the finish,” Hieron says.”I’m looking for him to make mistakes and I will surely look to capitalize. I’m confident in my skills and my team that we’ll be ready for anything he has to offer.”
For an event that was to be headlined by two of the sports all-time greats, and a supporting cast that was pretty much garbage-ass, it’s disappointing that tonight you have no PPV to watch, no excuse to spend even more time at Hooters, and no good reason not to attend the wedding your girlfriend has been nagging you about going to. But if you thought that was going to stop us from milking this thing for everything its got, you are severely wrong, my friend.
Taking the reigns tonight is longtime CagePotato contributor/Twitter pseudo celebrity Jason Moles. This card will either be a smashing success thanks to the main event or a failure of epic proportions thanks to everything else. Stick around, insult him in the comments section, and be sure to tell all of your friends about the only UFC 151 liveblog on the internet (EVER!) can be found. Now let’s get to it.
For an event that was to be headlined by two of the sports all-time greats, and a supporting cast that was pretty much garbage-ass, it’s disappointing that tonight you have no PPV to watch, no excuse to spend even more time at Hooters, and no good reason not to attend the wedding your girlfriend has been nagging you about going to. But if you thought that was going to stop us from milking this thing for everything its got, you are severely wrong, my friend.
Taking the reigns tonight is longtime CagePotato contributor/Twitter pseudo celebrity Jason Moles. This card will either be a smashing success thanks to the main event or a failure of epic proportions thanks to everything else. Stick around, insult him in the comments section, and be sure to tell all of your friends about the only UFC 151 liveblog on the internet (EVER!) can be found. Now let’s get to it.
Preliminary card results
– Michael Johnson def. Danny Castillo via unanimous decision (29-28 x 2, 30-27)
– Jeff Hougland def. Takeya Mizugaki via submission (triangle choke), 1:12 of round 3
– Tim Means def. Abel Trujillo via TKO, 2:04 of round 1
– Daron Cruickshank def. Henry Martinez via submission (armbar), 2:59 of round 2
– Jacob Volkmann def. Shane Roller via unanimous decision (30-27 x 2, 30-28)
– Charlie Brenneman def. Kyle Noke via TKO due to injury (eyeball popped out of socket; GIF to come ASAP), 4:29 of round 2
Before we get started, I’m not typing Urshitani twenty times so he will be known as YU from here on out. Both men looked pumped. Lots of pressure to start the night of right.
Round 1: Lineker lands a nice leg kick. They both trade a few jabs. YU shoots for the takedown and gets it. Does a little G&P before Lineker wall walks his way up the cage. They separate. Both looking to make their move. It’s YU who gets another takedown. Lineker sweeps, very impressive. Lineker raining down punches. YU grabs hold of his arms. The bell sounds.
Round 2: Lineker comes out guns blazing. YU shoots for a takedown and gets stuffed. Shoots again successfully. Lineker looking for a kimura. He’s got it. Looks to be locked in. Rogan is going bananas! YU escapes and gets butterfly guard. Lineker looking to drop bombs but gets his arm caught. YU has an armbar locked in! There’s the tapout. It’s all over!
Winner: Yasuhiro Urishitani, 2:55 of round 2, submission due to armbar.
Ya know, every time I see Hallman wearing anything more than a bananna hammock I do cartwheels around my living room. Tonight is no different.
Round 1: The crowd is already booing. Looked like Tavares may have kicked as Hallman as he was attempting to touch gloves. Not to worry, Hallman is more than game to return the favor with a well-timed kick of his own. Hallman shoots a double leg. Back right up on the feet. Tavares lands a nice hook. Hallman answers with a huge right that sends Tavares to the mat. Tavares is bleeding but gets back to his feet. They clinch. If this were on FX, they’d have to swing by Home Depot for more spray paint — looks someone sacrificed a small animal in there. They break. Hallman lands an elbow backing away. Tavares is hurt but is saved by the horn.
Round 2:Seeing Arianny up close never gets old, amirite? Hallman is attacking like there’s no tomorrow. Lefts and rights flying. Tavares still bleeding like a stuck pig. Tavares moving well, too bad it’s towards Hallman’s right hand. Did this guy not see Bisping vs. Henderson at UFC 100? Hallman cuts him off, slips a hook, and boom! – Tavares is out.
It’s not fair to call Dennis Siver a one-trick pony, but it’s not like he’s got an entire arsenal at his disposal either. If there’s one thing Eddie Yagin needed to prepare for, it’s that sick spinning back kick. Siver walking out to “Last Resort” by Papa Roach. Ahh, good times. Yagin proving he’s the more sophisticated music lover with “American Badass” by Kid Rock.
Round 1: Siver opens up with a punch, kick and 3-4 solid strikes. Yagin tries to clinch, gets it. Dirty boxing against the cage. Siver breaks free and drops Yagin with a left head kick. He pounces but Yagin has recovered. Back to the clinch. Yagin shoots for a takedown and fails. Siver gets walked back and peppered with a few jabs followed by a hook. Siver blocks a head kick. End of round one. Feeling out process over, I hope.
Round 2: Siver eats a head kick. Yagin gets the clinch but does nothing. Both men tired of hugging and start fighting. Nice little back and forth here. Not sure what happened but Siver is cut. Yagin gets him against the cage and continues the punishment. Siver moves away and lands a nice body kick. Yagin stays light on his feet and gets another takedown. Full mount and lands several shots to the head. Siver gives up his back. After a scramble, Siver is on top and moves to side control. Horn.
Round 3: Siver’s cut looks nasty. Not goat vagina nasty, but still. Siver finds his range and lands a few body kicks. Excellent head kick cuts Yagin. Spinning back kick!!! Left hook by Siver. Yagin counters. These two are just banging! Another head kick by Siver. Back and forth: I punch you – you punch me. Siver gets taken down, reverses and gets locked in a triangle. Siver powers out of it. On the feet they trade some more. Horn. This one’s going to the judges.
Ellenberger doesn’t care about the Eminem Curse, trots to the cage as ‘Till I Collapse’ plays over the speakers. Hieron gets his hat stolen by some groupie. That should rake in about tree-fiddy on eBay. I should mention that this isn’t the first time these two have met. At IFL: Championship 2006 “The Thoroughbred” took Ellenberger the full three rounds and won a decision. Will tonight be any different?
Round 1: No feeling out process for these hungry lions. Hieron’s got a lot riding on tonight. Both trade leather. Ellenberger gets a double leg and knocks some sense to the returning UFC fighter. Hieron sweeps and land a few nice shots of his own. Hieron goes for an armbar. HOLY $%&@!!! Jay Hieron taps out Jake Ellenberger!!! Welcome back to the UFC! Just before he talks with Rogan, his corner slips a wreath around his neck. Well, can’t say I saw that one coming.
Winner: Jay Hieron, 1:07 of round 1, submission due to armbar.
Finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Jon “Bones” Jones defends his UFC Light heavyweight title for the first time since driving drunk and crashing his Bentley against 40 year old TRT king, Dan “Hendo” Henderson. If Henderson wins, does that make him the light heavyweight GOAT?
Ahh yes, the extended fight preview to make up for the quick finishes. Now is the time to grab a quick snack or hit the can. You won’t want to miss anything after Buffer starts screaming.
Jones looks nervous, but he always does (I think so, anyway) and he always wins. Henderson looks happy to have a chance to finally win that elusive UFC gold. No matter the outcome, Hendo is a legend and has his spot reserved in the UFC Hall of Fame.
Round 1: Let’s do this! Jones runs across the cage and lands a flying knee. Shoots for a takedown, but Hendo’s wrestling stuffs it almost immediately. Dan shoots and gets a takedown. Hendo can’t hold the young lion. Jones back on his feet but Dan is boxing him into the fence. Henderson trips him and moves into half guard. Jones eats a few punches but manages to escape. Henderson clinches and dirty boxes Jones. Jones drops levels and gets the takedown. Jones cant hold him. Hendo back up. Jones lands a spinning back fist that cuts the former PRIDE champ. End of round 1.
Round 2: Jones using his reach quite well. Lighting up Hendo. Now they’re both trading leather. Hendo bloodies Jones. Never saw this before! Henderson smells blood and gets the takedown. They scramble and both trade top position. Hendo gets full mount but seems too tired to do anything with it. There we go, he’s dropping elbows now. I wonder if Jones even knew he could bleed? Henderson peppers him with pillow punches until the horn. Shouldn’t the ref have stood them up?
Round 3: Dan “waists” no time trying to get the champ to the ground. Jones on his back, Hendo in half guard, a few strikes getting through. Bones blocking most. Henderson finds an opening and rocks Jones. Quickly recovers and back on the feet, Jones is truly being tested for the first time in his pro career. Henderson clinches and tosses him to the mat. Side control and H Bombs are firing. Herb Dean calling for the champ to protect himself . Hendo continues the onslaught. That’s it! We have a new champion! Dan Henderson has now won the most prized crown in all of combat sports: the UFC championship! The crowd is nucking futs. They’ve just witnessed history. Buffer seems ultra exited to declare Henderson the new champ.
Winner: Dan Henderson, 3:10 of round 3, TKO
Henderson says he’s not done fighting yet, but admits it won’t be too long before he hands up the gloves and puts his teeth back in. As all champions should, Henderson tells Rogan that he’ll face whomever Joe Silva and Dana White put in front of him. He then thanks his fans, the UFC, and his sponsors. Surprisingly, no mention of TRT.
Jones apologizes for his performance and apologizes to the fans and the UFC. Joe asks him what’s next and he says he’ll head back to Jackson’s and watch the tape to see what went wrong. Says he’ll be back stronger than ever, and he too, will face anyone they put in the cage with him, unless, you know, it’s on short notice.
End-of-night bonuses:
Submission of the Night: Jay Hieron
KO of the Night: Dennis Hallman
Fight of the Night: John Lineker vs. Yasuhiro Urishitani
Pictured: Their approximate reactions to finding out “garbage-ass” was a real phrase.
One week ago, Ben published an article voicing concerns over how weak UFC 151’s main card was. But it was cool, because Jon Jones vs. Dan Henderson was going to be such an awesome fight. Two days ago, Jones vs. Henderson was scrapped and UFC 151 was canceled. [Ed. note: Damn, two days? Feels like we’ve been covering this forever.] Even though most of us acknowledged that the cancellation of the event was at least partially due to the garbage-assness of pretty much the entire card, we were too busy talking about Jon Jones ducking Chael Sonnen/Sonnen attempting to troll his way into an immediate title shot (depending on which side of the fence you’re on) to really delve into the issue. But now that the UFC has started to transplant the canceled UFC 151 fights to other cards, it’s time to take a closer look at that issue for a moment.
The bouts from UFC 151 are quickly being rescheduled for different cards, with UFC on FX 5 taking a significant chunk of them. As we covered in yesterday’s link dump, UFC 151’s planned co-main event, Jake Ellenberger vs. Jay Hieron, will now be the co-main event of UFC On FX 5. This won’t be the only fight from UFC 151’s main card that will now be padding UFC on FX 5 – Dennis Hallman vs. Thiago Tavares, Danny Castillo vs. Michael Johnson and Shane Roller vs. Jacob Volkmann will be moved to this card as well. UFC on Fuel TV 6 will now be featuring fights between bantamweights Takeya Mizugaki and Jeff Hougland and flyweights John Lineker and Yasuhiro Urushitani, while Kyle Noke and Charlie Brenneman will do the man dance on the undercard of UFC 152.
In case you haven’t noticed, it’s worth mentioning that absolutely none of these fights – three of which were on the pay-per-view portion of UFC 151, mind you – have made it to the main card of an upcoming pay-per-view. Now I understand that financially, most fighters who were expecting a paycheck on September 1 simply can’t afford to wait until November’s UFC 154 to fight again. But that’s not the issue: The issue is that the UFC could afford to move pay-per-view quality fights *makes this hand gesture* to free television in the first place.
Pictured: Their approximate reactions to finding out “garbage-ass” was a real phrase.
One week ago, Ben published an article voicing concerns over how weak UFC 151′s main card was. But it was cool, because Jon Jones vs. Dan Henderson was going to be such an awesome fight. Two days ago, Jones vs. Henderson was scrapped and UFC 151 was canceled. [Ed. note: Damn, two days? Feels like we’ve been covering this forever.] Even though most of us acknowledged that the cancellation of the event was at least partially due to the garbage-assness of pretty much the entire card, we were too busy talking about Jon Jones ducking Chael Sonnen/Sonnen attempting to troll his way into an immediate title shot (depending on which side of the fence you’re on) to really delve into the issue. But now that the UFC has started to transplant the canceled UFC 151 fights to other cards, it’s time to take a closer look at that issue for a moment.
The bouts from UFC 151 are quickly being rescheduled for different cards, with UFC on FX 5 taking a significant chunk of them. As we covered in yesterday’s link dump, UFC 151′s planned co-main event, Jake Ellenberger vs. Jay Hieron, will now be the co-main event of UFC On FX 5. This won’t be the only fight from UFC 151′s main card that will now be padding UFC on FX 5 – Dennis Hallman vs. Thiago Tavares, Danny Castillo vs. Michael Johnson and Shane Roller vs. Jacob Volkmann will be moved to this card as well. UFC on Fuel TV 6 will now be featuring fights between bantamweights Takeya Mizugaki and Jeff Hougland and flyweights John Lineker and Yasuhiro Urushitani, while Kyle Noke and Charlie Brenneman will do the man dance on the undercard of UFC 152.
In case you haven’t noticed, it’s worth mentioning that absolutely none of these fights – three of which were on the pay-per-view portion of UFC 151, mind you – have made it to the main card of an upcoming pay-per-view. Now I understand that financially, most fighters who were expecting a paycheck on September 1 simply can’t afford to wait until November’s UFC 154 to fight again. But that’s not the issue: The issue is that the UFC could afford to move pay-per-view quality fights *makes this hand gesture* to free television in the first place.
Dana White can point his fingers at Jon Jones and Greg Jackson and say “That’s the bad guy!” all he wants, but that certainly doesn’t make him the good guy in all of this. The fact that the UFC can give away bouts that they expected you to pay for without worrying about the revenue they’ll lose is essentially an admission that the bouts were never really worth your money in the first place. Essentially, it’s proof that, as we feared, over-saturation has reached its tipping point in the UFC and as a result, the main event of any given pay-per-view is the only fight worth paying for. Gone are the days when a fighter in the co-main event of a UFC pay-per-view was too big of a name for basic cable (Isn’t that right, Mike Russow?). It’s easy to make Jon Jones and Greg Jackson the scapegoats for the cancellation of UFC 151, but it’s nothing short of willful ignorance to continue to deny that over-saturation is a pandemic in the UFC.
With Jones vs. Belfort now headlining UFC 152 (151?), Dana White will more than likely use the “stacked” UFC 152 as “proof” that the UFC is still putting on stacked cards and that over-saturation is not an issue. On paper, he has a point; it’s hard to say that a card with two title fights isn’t a quality product. But let’s actually look at what we’re getting: A light-heavyweight title fight where the challenger earned the honor of fighting for a belt by simply being the first guy to say “Yeah, sure, I’ll do it,” a flyweight title fight that fans weren’t exactly excited for in the first place, and a middleweight scrap between two top-ten fighters who probably still won’t be getting a shot at Anderson Silva with a victory. Call me crazy, but I’m not seeing a stacked card here. I’m seeing a card that, up until Jon Jones was added on, was weaker than UFC 151.
I guess it would be pretty ironic of me to let the comments section fill up with complaints about how boxing died because champions were fighting unworthy challengers and the “one-fight cards” that ruined the sport. But to do that would be missing my own point, so instead I’ll propose a new rule: From now on, if you aren’t willing to complain with your wallet, you forfeit your right to complain with your keyboard. That should be enough to force the UFC to acknowledge over-saturation, and admission is the first step to recovery.
After a seven year absence from Zuffa’s graces that saw him go 16-3 in various promotions including Bellator, Strikeforce, and most recently Legacy Fighting Championships, highly-ranked welterweight Jay Hieron will finally be returning to the UFC to take on Jake Ellenberger in Josh Koscheck’s absence in the co-main event of UFC 151.
After a seven year absence from Zuffa’s graces that saw him go 16-3 in various promotions including Bellator, Strikeforce, and most recently Legacy Fighting Championships, highly-ranked welterweight Jay Hieron will finally be returning to the UFC to take on Jake Ellenberger in Josh Koscheck’s absence in the co-main event of UFC 151.
Hieron has not competed in the UFC since October of 2005, where he suffered a third round TKO via cut loss to the now-retired Jonathan Goulet in one of the bloodiest MMA fights you will ever see. Now 11-1 in his past twelve, Hieron’s lone defeat in the past five years was the aforementioned loss to Askren in their welterweight title bout.
Ellenberger, on the other hand, is coming off a tough TKO loss of his own at the hands and knees of comeback all-star Martin Kampmann at the TUF 15 Finale. The loss was the first in his 33-fight career to come by way of (T)KO, and snapped an impressive six-fight win streak that included wins over Diego Sanchez, Jake Shields, and Mike Pyle among others.
One has to imagine that bailing the UFC out on short notice will at least buy Hieron a couple more fights even if he is unsuccessful against Ellenbgerger, but what do you think, Potato Nation? Will Hieron’s glorious return end in triumph or defeat?
What a surprise. Nick Diaz went and screwed up his career, again. Even though Diaz is MMA’s most chronic abuser of fans, his followers just cannot help but to ask for more—despite knowing it’s just a matter of time before they get another shot to…
What a surprise. Nick Diaz went and screwed up his career, again.
Even though Diaz is MMA‘s most chronic abuser of fans, his followers just cannot help but to ask for more—despite knowing it’s just a matter of time before they get another shot to the back of the head. This would leave any other athlete in any other sport a pariah. Diaz fans, though, are the first to come to his defense and the last to realize that he is not somebody to put stake into.
It is sad and painful to watch.
While there are many reasons to hate Diaz, it should be framed in why people like him.
He is an exciting fighter. Plain and simple.
Diaz is a serious threat anywhere in the cage, and always looks to finish a fight—a serious change of pace from the distance-focused fighters like Georges St-Pierre and Jon Fitch, who dominated the welterweight division for a long while. From 2008-2011, in 11 fights, Diaz only made the judges earn their paychecks twice.
That, though, is the extent of his likability.
Diaz is consistently disrespectful to his opponents in and out of the cage. He and his brother, historically, are possibly the best in the business at instantly hating somebody for no reason other than having to fight them.
This turns into vitriolic smack-talk before fights, moronic taunting during and, if he happens to lose (or sometimes, even if he wins), nonsensical complaining after. He is also no favorite of the press, typically coming off as disinterested or confused during press conferences and conference calls.
Okay, so he could use some work on his verbal skills. He still is a total professional, right?
Well, no. As previously mentioned, he is not especially savvy with a microphone in his face. But a bigger problem than that is how he tends to not show up to media obligations. His highest-profile misstep was his bout with Georges St-Pierre. What was easily the biggest fight of his career, and one of the biggest fights for the UFC in 2011, got nixed because of his absolute refusal to attend required promotional and press events.
So his people skills are not great. Professionally? Eh…not so great there, either. At least he behaves himself.
Ha! Nope. That would actually be his biggest downfall—with a lengthy history of self-control problems and one of the longest rap sheets in MMA history.
He threw a shoe at Diego Sanchez before they fought at the TUF2 Finale.
He picked a fight with Joe Riggs at a hospital after losing to him in the cage.
He has repeatedly failed drug tests due to his frequent use of marijuana; and probably would have failed at least one more if he did not skip a drug test before a title fight with Jay Hieron.
He was the central figure in a post-fight brawl at Strikeforce: Nashville that got the promotion kicked off of network television.
All that and he is still one of the most popular figures in MMA. Why? Why do his fans put up with this?
I’m not a psychologist, but it seems pretty clear Diaz has some type of fear of success. He has, after all, cheated himself and his inexplicably loyal fans out of three (four, technically) title fights between Jay Hieron, Georges St-Pierre and Carlos Condit (twice, really, because even if he beat Condit, the bout would have probably turned into a no contest, and then his positive test would have stripped him of the chance for an immediate rematch).
Worst of all, he has a Josh Barnett-like allergy to taking responsibility for his actions. There is always an excuse—whether he thought the weed would be flushed out of his system, he was just getting his boy’s back or he perceived something that somebody did as disrespectful. He never simply made a mistake.
There was a big hubbub just a week ago about Diaz truanting a BJJ event he was headlining. Cesar Gracie, Diaz’s manager/trainer/babysitter, was quick to defend him, giving a nonsensical explanation about how his would-be opponent, Braulio Estima, came in overweight and lied about the nature of his MMA training.
Estima came out and ripped Cesar Gracie, dismantling his argument piece-by-piece. Gracie flip-flopped and tried to deflect the criticism toward Nalty Junior, the event’s marketer. Ultimately, though, this is entirely irrelevant. The bottom line is that fans paid to see Nick Diaz and did not get their money’s worth; for reasons nobody really knows—possibly not even Diaz himself.
This seems almost an eternity ago now, however, with Diaz officially being suspended for a year by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for again testing positive for marijuana metabolites.
Diaz’s handlers and fans are obviously disappointed, but the case his lawyer was trying to make was never logically sound or likely to succeed (he tried focusing in on a technicality in the wording of the rules). Diaz now has to wait until February 2013 for another fight. In all likelihood, he has denied his fans the opportunity to see a rematch with Condit, a bout with Georges St-Pierre or anything other than BJJ events he may, or may not, attend.
Whether or not you disagree with the suspension is irrelevant. This is not some unfortunate misstep by Diaz. This was not supposed to be a huge, transcendent event where everyone figures out that weed is whatever you think it is. This was Diaz’s “trial.” They were supposed to determine if he broke the rules (and he did), and determine how harsh his punishment should be.
Most of all, though, Nick Diaz did something stupid and put his career at risk. It’s something you saw coming; admit it.
Nick Diaz is a 28 year-old man. He is, in all likelihood, as mature as he is ever going to be. To be a Diaz fan is to embrace the fact that any given accomplishment will be followed by disappointment and ridicule.
Diaz fans, you can do better.
Lose that zero. You can put that enthusiasm behind his brother, Nate, who is probably going to be fighting for the lightweight belt later this year, or in early 2013.
You can get behind Carlos Condit, who has demonstrated knockout power alongside an ability to game plan and adjust during fights—which he used to beat Diaz in lopsided fashion in February.
If you are looking for somebody with a bad attitude and arm-snapping skills, Ronda Rousey can use more fans.
Either way, you can do better than Nick Diaz. You are only setting yourself up for more disappointment.
What a surprise. Nick Diaz went and screwed up his career, again.
