Following yesterday’s face-off dust-up with Donald Cerrone, Nate Diaz explained why he was forced to knock off Cowboy’s hat and shove him. In short, Cerrone got too close: “He was just trying to walk forward on me and, y’know, trying to get the jump on me, so whatever. He shouldn’t have walked that close, put his stupid-ass cowboy hat all up on me. I wasn’t trying to be a bully or anything, but he shouldn’t have done that.”
Meanwhile, brother Nick eggs him on as much as possible. Like Cerrone put it before, these two just wake up pissed off all the time for no reason. And remember, Nate and Cowboy still have one more face-off to get through at today’s UFC 141 weigh-ins — and then, y’know, an actual fight. Brace yourselves.
After the jump, a video of the Cerrone vs. Diaz and Lesnar vs. Overeem face-offs from yesterday’s press conference, via Karyn Bryant.
Following yesterday’s face-off dust-up with Donald Cerrone, Nate Diaz explained why he was forced to knock off Cowboy’s hat and shove him. In short, Cerrone got too close: “He was just trying to walk forward on me and, y’know, trying to get the jump on me, so whatever. He shouldn’t have walked that close, put his stupid-ass cowboy hat all up on me. I wasn’t trying to be a bully or anything, but he shouldn’t have done that.”
Meanwhile, brother Nick eggs him on as much as possible. Like Cerrone put it before, these two just wake up pissed off all the time for no reason. And remember, Nate and Cowboy still have one more face-off to get through at today’s UFC 141 weigh-ins — and then, y’know, an actual fight. Brace yourselves.
After the jump, a video of the Cerrone vs. Diaz and Lesnar vs. Overeem face-offs from yesterday’s press conference, via Karyn Bryant.
Filed under: UFCLAS VEGAS — The MMA world is so used to Saturday night pay-per-view events that even UFC president Dana White was bound to slip up when promoting the rare Friday night outing this week. Unfortunately, he made the mistake when talking w…
LAS VEGAS — The MMA world is so used to Saturday night pay-per-view events that even UFC president Dana White was bound to slip up when promoting the rare Friday night outing this week. Unfortunately, he made the mistake when talking with the people at the UFC’s new wireless partner, MetroPCS.
“I just met with the MetroPCS people and I said, ‘I’ll see you Saturday,'” White told reporters following Wednesday’s UFC 141 press conference. “I’m promoting this thing and I said, ‘I’ll see you Saturday.'”
It’s so easy to do. The UFC has gotten its fight week routine down to such a consistent rhythm, fans and media alike are conditioned to expect things in a certain order. Press conference on Thursday, weigh-ins on Friday, fights on Saturday. Only the names and locations change — until this time. But in order to avoid the colossal headache of trying to promote a fight on New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas, the UFC had to move everything up a day this week. Now even White isn’t sure how fans will react.
“To be honest, we’re a little concerned about Friday night,” White said. “Everybody’s programmed for Saturday, Saturday, Saturday.”
And, in theory, the UFC could have slated UFC 141 for Saturday night. After all, big fights on New Year’s Eve are a tradition in Japan, but then so is staying home to watch TV that night. The UFC could have tried to convince fans to order a pay-per-view rather than go out and party, but then, that wouldn’t have been the only gamble, White pointed out.
“The problem is, you can’t put on fights in Las Vegas on [New Year’s Eve],” he said. “They shut the strip down. You can’t even get around here. It would be a nightmare.”
At one point, the UFC president was “almost 100 percent confident” that the organization was headed back to Abu Dhabi for a New Year’s Eve show, he said. And yet here we are again, back in the UFC’s hometown, with White hoping that fans won’t wake up on Saturday morning eagerly anticipating some big fights that they already missed.
It’s one variable of many that makes it hard to predict this event’s chances for success. With UFC 141, the organization is returning to the 10 p.m. ET start time that it had previously abandoned in favor of moving the action up an hour. The UFC also turned to its new friends at FUEL TV — a FOX cable channel that is available in about 60 million fewer homes than the UFC’s former TV partners at Spike — to help promote the event with the customary “Countdown” show.
Ratings were dismal for that effort, with a measly 15,000 viewers for its Dec. 21 premiere, according to MMA Junkie. But White, of course, claimed that this was more or less what he expected so early in the game.
“It wasn’t alarming at all,” he told reporters. “Those are the type of ratings that that network pulls. …Those numbers will build. We’re going to build that network.”
Part of the problem is availability. Fight fans know where Spike TV is on the dial, and most of them probably have it in their cable packages. The same can’t be said of FUEL, though White seems to be hoping that fans will pipe up once the UFC takes its act there full-time in 2012.
“I think that once all this programming goes out on FUEL, I think the fans are going to end up [requesting it from cable operators],” he said. “More and more people are going to want FUEL.”
That’s fine for next year, but what about Friday night? The UFC is offering up one of its biggest pay-per-view draws in Brock Lesnar, not to mention a simmering feud between Donald Cerrone and Nate Diaz, and it risks waving goodbye to a healthy chunk of pay-per-view revenue if it can’t get the word out and convince fans to find a seat on the couch by Friday night.
It might not be quite as difficult as putting on a fight in Vegas on New Year’s Eve would have been, but it’s no small challenge, either. When even the president of the company occasionally flubs the night of the show while selling it out in public, you know there are potential problems on the horizon. Once you have to deviate from your own dependable schedule, there are bound to be some people who don’t get the message in time.
Filed under: UFC, MMA Fighting Exclusive, NewsWhere I am from, if you are cool with someone, you are cool with their friends. If you are not cool with me, then don’t go talking to my best friend when I am in the room unless you can be cool with me for …
Where I am from, if you are cool with someone, you are cool with their friends. If you are not cool with me, then don’t go talking to my best friend when I am in the room unless you can be cool with me for a couple of seconds, too.
A couple of months ago at UFC 137, at the open workout at the TUF Gym in Vegas, Nate Diaz was in the room talking to my best friend, Leonard Garcia, so I went over to shake his hand. Nothing major just like, “Hey man, what’s going on? Nice to meet you.”
This was the first time I’ve ever met the dude and I was being polite. Y’know, because that what you do when you are in a room and your friend is talking to a dude right in front of you, you introduce yourself.
But Diaz slapped my hand away and called me a ‘punk-ass b**ch’ and walked off.
I was like, really?
Okay.
This guy thinks you’ve got to be dumb or come from Stockton, wherever that is, to be tough. But I’ve got the same ‘I don’t give a f**k’ gene he has, and I also got genes for better striking and better wrestling. He pissed me off, he lit my fire up and as soon as I beat Dennis Siver at UFC 137 I knew that I wanted to fight again before the end of the year, and I knew I wanted to fight Nate Diaz.
The weird thing is, I like the Diaz brothers. They come to fight. They are crazy. They bring it. Diaz is going to show up Friday night at UFC 141 and we will have a war. Do I respect him as a fighter? Yes I do. He comes to throw down. He comes and fights with everything he’s got. Is that enough to stop me from beating him up? No, it is not. Not anywhere near.
If he wants to stand, let’s stand. He won’t last a round with that funny hands above his head like he’s riding a Harley stance. And if he wants to take me down, first he has got to beat my wrestling, and he isn’t good enough to do that. And I don’t know if it is a good idea for him to even try to take me down. My BJJ isn’t great, but it is as good as his.
Diaz doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when he talks. He said if I don’t knock him out or win a decision, I am in trouble. What does that mean? I know how to co-exist in this world, and part of that is to say ‘Hi’ and shake hands with people. Diaz can’t do that. I guess he didn’t go to school to learn how to shake hands… sorry, inside joke.
Yesterday we had the open workouts at the same TUF gym where Diaz slapped my hand away in October. I was in the locker room waiting for him to get done doing interviews with press, but then I decided to go out and give him something to worry about. I purposely went out there knowing he wasn’t done and started hitting pads. He kept turning around real skittish.
I got this. If he makes it to the second round, he’s had a lucky night.
Follow ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone on twitter @Cowboycerrone
UFC 141: Lesnar vs. Overeem kicked off its fan frenzied pre-fight press conference in front of a packed lobby at the MGM Grand. Fans waited for hours for the presser to begin and well, it.
UFC 141: Lesnar vs. Overeem kicked off its fan frenzied pre-fight press conference in front of a packed lobby at the MGM Grand. Fans waited for hours for the presser to begin and well, it didn’t necessarily start with a bang, as media members were less than eager to fire off questions, for it had only been a day since we’d bombarded Brock Lesnar, Alistair Overeem, Nate Diaz, and Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone with our challenging inquiries at the open workouts. Lesnar kept things colorful with tossing out a few curse words in his answers, Overeem kept a steady smile, Nate kept his composure, and Cowboy…well, he kept his hat on…that is, until Nate knocked it off. You can watch the entire press conference here or just check out our exclusive photos by Silton Buendia below.
Apparently Nate Diaz was more of a “cops and robbers” kid than a “cowboys and Indians” one growing up and we’re going to go out on a limb and guess he didn’t pretend to be on the good side of the law either.
Nate, who makes up 1/2 of the UFC’s version of The Nasty Boys kept up appearances during the staredowns as he flipped off Donald Cerrone’s trademark cowboy hat before shoving his upcoming opponent for good measure. Alistair Overeem seems unimpressed and barely bats an eye at the confrontation. Where he comes from, pulling something like that would get you slashed with a bottle.
LAS VEGAS — Things got heated between UFC 141 co-main eventers Donald Cerrone and Nate Diaz following Wednesday’s pre-fight press conference, which led to Diaz knocking off Cerrone’s cowboy hat and shoving his opponent on Friday night. Watch the video below.
LAS VEGAS — Things got heated between UFC 141 co-main eventers Donald Cerrone and Nate Diaz following Wednesday’s pre-fight press conference, which led to Diaz knocking off Cerrone’s cowboy hat and shoving his opponent on Friday night. Watch the video below.
LAS VEGAS — The MMA world is so used to Saturday night pay-per-view events that even UFC president Dana White was bound to slip up when promoting the rare Friday night outing this week. Unfortunately, he made the mistake when talking with the people at the UFC’s new wireless partner, MetroPCS.
Where I am from, if you are cool with someone, you are cool with their friends. If you are not cool with me, then don’t go talking to my best friend when I am in the room unless you can be cool with me for a couple of seconds, too. 
