By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief Since taking part in the beat down of Jason "Mayhem" Miller in April, Nick Diaz has been called out by "Mayhem" on numerous occasions, and a bout between the two was discussed for this month's Strikeforce event in San Jose. But with both sides arguing over what weight to hold the fight at, it never came to fruition.
Tired of hearing people say that he was somehow "ducking" Miller, Diaz went on a rant on Thursday's pre-event conference call ahead of his fight with Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos, making it clear it came down to one thing: money.
?I'd be happy to move up, I'd like to get paid for it you know?" Diaz said. "I don't like how people try to say that I didn't accept the fight with Miller because I was too small. I never said anything about that. I said if I'm going to go off track and screw with my whole season - [because] it's going to screw with my whole year, it's going to screw with my capabilities of fighting at 170lbs - if I'm going to do that I'd like to get paid in full. I would like to have a reason for doing that. Not just do it at everybody else's convenience."
"I'd like to get paid something extra. Double, triple, something crazy for me to do something extra that would screw up my weight to fight at that weight. I'm not just doing it for free when I'd make the same money to fight at 170lbs. It's twice as much work."
The topic of money and Miller got Diaz on a roll, and he continued on, explaining that he didn't feel Miller was willing to put the work in that he would have had to in order to move up in weight.
"I never didn't want to sign for that fight with Miller," he explained. "They were talking about making me move weights. I said tell his ass to get in f***ing shape and make weight like I do. It's f***ing hard enough for me to make 170lbs. He acts like he wouldn't be able to do it, he doesn't want to work hard like me, that's the problem.
But Diaz wasn't done there. His rant took a turn for the monetary, and he was incensed with the level of money he felt he deserved yet hasn't been getting paid.
"He can work his ass off and make 175 lbs; or, somebody can pay me a f***ing couple million dollars and I'll move up to 185 lbs and fight him. Or, he can quit getting f***ing slapped in public, I know somebody's got that s*** on video tape. That motherf***er doesn't want to fight me. [Manny] Pacquiao's making 40 million dollars, GSP's making a couple million dollars, I'm over here driving a f***ing Honda because my s***'s breaking down. F*** all you motherf***ers."
When asked later in the call who he'd like to fight before his career is over, he named Georges St. Pierre and Anderson Silva. On the subject of St. Pierre, Diaz got angry again when asked why he continues to call out the UFC Welterweight Champion when it's a fight that's not available to him.
"People think this guy's better than me and it's bulls***," Diaz said. "What do you want? You guys are going to rank that guy above me anyway."
Diaz fights "Cyborg" on January 29 at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., in the main event of the card on Showtime.
Penick's Analysis: Diaz's ranting was the most entertaining part of today's call, but it brings back frustration with Diaz and this view he has of himself. He talks about believing he's better than Georges St. Pierre, and he wants to downplay the level of competition in the UFC, and at the same time rants about the money he wants to make for fights, and here he just re-signed with Strikeforce. He ranted about fighters in the UFC "fighting no one", and yet his level of competition in the welterweight division is nowhere near what St. Pierre has fought, and he continues to call GSP out. It's frustrating, because he's got the talent to compete and to defeat a lot of the best fighters in the world, but he's not fighting them to prove that, and then he gets upset that people don't put him on the same level as St. Pierre. It's madness at times, but it makes for entertaining rants. And for the record, I agree with his stance on the Miller fight. With him walking around at a much lower weight, it would have been more work for him to build mass to make the weight for that fight, and if the money wasn't there for him to do it then it didn't make sense. Especially with Miller not being willing to put in extra work to drop further weight himself. But when he gets into what others are making and rants about that, he's not making a great case with who he's fighting at the moment.
Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/Affliction2/article_8214.shtml
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