Nate Diaz left to contemplate future after another loss
The rebel who bucks the system has long been a popular archetype in combat sports. The fighter who kicks ass, takes names and thumbs his nose at authority will always draw the sort of fans who live vicariously through their antihero.
But when the fighter stops kicking ass, things can take an ugly turn.
Such was the case this week for UFC lightweight Nate Diaz. Coming off a self-imposed, year-long exile in protest of his pay rate, the Stockton, Calif., native had a train wreck of a return, one that was capped with a one-sided decision loss to Rafael dos Anjos at UFC on FOX 13 in Phoenix.
Diaz first raised eyebrows Wednesday, when he missed a public workout session, although that's not unprecedented for either Nate or older brother Nick.
Thursday, Nate vented his frustrations in an interview with MMAFighting.com. He ripped on the UFC's recent signing of former pro wrestler CM Punk ("[Expletive] him and [expletive] his situation") and the UFC's announcement of an apparel deal with Reebok, which will replace independent fighter sponsorships ("They're going to make us all look the same, like we're in a cult").
On Friday, Diaz weighed in for his fight at 160.6 pounds, more than four pounds over the allowable limit for non-championship lightweight bouts, and as such forfeited 20 percent of his fight purse.
Had Diaz gone out and scored an impressive win after his wild chain of events, he would have cemented his anti-authoritarian, cult-hero status. Instead, he had a miserable night in the cage against dos Anjos. Dos Anjos brutalized Diaz with leg kicks, to the point the doctor was called in during the second round to check out Diaz's legs. Diaz was never able to get any offense going.
While he was tough enough to survive the onslaught and go the distance, he was on the wrong end of two 30-26 scores and a 30-27. It marked Diaz's third loss in his past four fights.
It's not too difficult to understand the source of Diaz's continuing frustration. He's a part of the "Skrap Pack." the famed crew of Cesar Gracie-trained fighters along with Nick Diaz and former Strikeforce champions Gilbert Melendez and Jake Shields.
The younger Diaz looks around at his team and sees how his big brother scored a huge payday in a big-drawing fight against Georges St-Pierre in 2013, took a year off, and once again figures to score big when he meets Anderson Silva on Jan. 31. Melendez, meanwhile, played his free-agent period correct earlier this year, fielded a contract offer from Bellator, and used his leverage to score a title fight and pay-per-view points in his UFC return against Anthony Pettis last week.
Nate Diaz isn't making the same money as his brother and his buddy, but nor has he earned it, either in the cage or as a drawing card. And now he's at a crossroads. He might be unhappy in the UFC, but after Bellator drew a monster television rating for their Tito Ortiz-Stephan Bonnar bout on Nov. 15, the UFC is likely going to think twice about releasing fighters who still retain name value, even if their peak has passed.
But on the other hand, dos Anjos aptly demonstrated on Saturday night what can happen in the UFC to a fighter, even one as talented as Diaz, who doesn't have his head in the game.
For his part, Diaz remained defiant enough to keep the admiration of his most hardcore followers. In the fight's closing seconds, he threw open-hand slaps from the bottom at dos Anjos, which only earned Diaz one final, violent flurry of dos Anjos strikes in response. Diaz promptly got up off the mat after the horn sounded and delivered a double-middle-fingered salute to the audience.
Later in the evening, Diaz had a rambling interview on FOX Sports 1 in which he referred to training-camp issues and an injury, neither of which he cared to elaborate on.
"I don't want to make excuses," Diaz said. "I hurt myself. I'm going to fight always. I have to get paid. You know? I have a life to pay for, I have to eat."
"I'm not like these other guys who pull out of fights due to little baby injuries, you know?" he continued. "The other fighters are breaking hands and little baby toes and pulling out of every fight. I've been injured for 10-15 fights, but regardless of what happens is, I'm going to show and do what I can do. I wish I had a little more to work with this time around, but I came with what I had and I wish I could have got more done."
Even later, Diaz posted a picture of an apparent lit marijuana cigarette to his Instagram account. It was a fitting coda to a roller coaster week. And it led his boss, UFC president Dana White, to question whether fighting is something Nate Diaz really wants to do anymore.
"He wants to make more money, yet he keeps doing things to make himself lose money, which doesn't make sense to me at all," White said at Saturday's postfight news conference. "I think Nate is in this position where he needs to go home, heal up and decide what he wants to do. Does he want to get serious and come in here and try to take a run? Or does he want to retire?"
Follow Dave Doyle on Twitter: @DaveDoyleMMA
