Nick Diaz Announces Retirement After UFC 143 – But Will He Change His Mind?
LAS VEGAS – UFC president Dana White understands why Nick Diaz is upset, even if he doesn’t agree with the fighter’s belief that he won Saturday’s UFC 143 main event.
He also understands if Diaz goes through with an announced retirement, even if he thinks it’d be financially foolish to do so.
Quite simply, White has given up on trying to predict the 28-year-old’s often-erratic behavior.
“You never know with Nick Diaz,” White said. “You never know. I think he’s just upset right now, and I think he’s emotional, but who knows?”
Diaz (27-8 MMA, 7-5 UFC) suffered a unanimous-decision loss to Condit (28-5 MMA, 5-1 UFC) at UFC 143. Saturday’s pay-per-view fight, which took place at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay Events Center, saw Condit implement the perfect game plan for defeating one of MMA’s most effective and relentless fight styles. Condit stuck, move, struck and reset to frustrate Diaz over the five-round fight, which earned Condit the UFC’s interim welterweight title and a future unification bout with recovering titleholder Georges St-Pierre.
Soon after the scores were read – Condit earned the victory via 48-47, 49-46 and 49-46 scores – the fiery Diaz praised his opponent but didn’t hide his contempt for the situation.
“You guys pay me a [expletive] load of money, but I don’t think I’m getting enough to keep going on,” he said. “I don’t need this [expletive]. I pushed this guy backward, and he ran from me the whole fight. He ran the whole fight.
“I landed the harder shots. He ran the whole time. He kicked me in the leg with little baby leg kicks the whole fight. That’s the way [you] win in here, so I don’t want to play this game no more.”
According to FightMetric, Condit outlanded Diaz 159-117 (including 151-105 in significant strikes). Diaz had a slight edge with head and body shots, but Condit’s low kicks – he outlanded Diaz 68-6 in that department – surely played a large part in the final scores.
The loss snapped Diaz’s 11-fight win streak and was his first defeat since a contentious TKO defeat (due to facial cuts) to K.J. Noons more than four years ago in EliteXC. After subsequently emerging as Strikeforce’s dominant longtime champion and then returning to the UFC, where he beat down B.J. Penn at UFC 137, he’s emerged as one of MMA’s biggest stars.
That’s why White thinks it’d be shortsighted to call it quits now.
“Let me tell you what: The kid’s made a lot of money,” he said. “If he didn’t want to do it anymore, maybe he could retire. But why? He’s in his prime. Fight for a few more years, and he’ll have enough money to really do it and kick back the rest of his life.”
Diaz often has shared his disdain for the sport, specifically judging and what he calls the politics of the fight game. He’s also notoriously undependable ahead of fight time; he lost a title shot with St-Pierre in October after no-showing a pair of pre-event press conference, and White said he inexplicably missed three flights for UFC 143 before he finally arrived in Sin City for this weekend’s event.
So while White thinks Diaz ultimately will rescind his retirement offer – after all, the UFC boss didn’t count out the possibility of an immediate rematch with Condit – he thinks it’s for the best if the fighter’s passion is gone.
“I think once he goes home and realizes and calms downs – look, Nick Diaz is a fighter,” he said. “I don’t see Nick Diaz retiring, but who knows? This isn’t one of those sports where you want to be half in, half out.
“If that’s how you feel, maybe you should retire.”
credit: mmajunkie
