(“Well at the very least, you’re paying me back for all this bottled water.”)
BJ Penn, Nick Diaz, Matt Mitrione, and Cheick Kongo were scheduled to participate in a UFC 137 media call at 2 p.m. ET today, and three of them called in on time. The other one, obviously, was Nick Diaz. According to twitter updates from Ariel Helwani, the UFC and Diaz’s manager/trainer Cesar Gracie began frantically searching for the former Strikeforce welterweight champ when he no-showed the call. Gracie was surprised by his fighter’s absence, but offered the explanation that he only found out about the media call 24 hours in advance and he wasn’t sure whether it was still on after GSP pulled out due to injury.
So anyway, Diaz finally shows up around 2:45 and says he didn’t know about the call. (Oh, won’t somebody keep this man informed of such things?) Dana White blamed his own organization for the mixup, but what else is he going to do, take Nick off the main event again? By the way, the current poster for UFC 137 carries the tagline “Expect the Unexpected.” You said it, brother.
Related: BJ Penn would accept the Diaz camp’s challenge to make their fight a five-rounder, as long as he’s “compensated accordingly.”