Nick Diaz: GSP should have called me out, and needs to respect his origins
Percy Crawford: I think when you come from where we come from, you have a chip on your shoulder anyway…
Percy Crawford: I think when you come from where we come from, you have a chip on your shoulder anyway because most media don’t come from that background and they are not cut from that cloth.
Nick Diaz: Yeah! We don’t get the benefit of the doubt. I gotta take what I can get and I’m not getting much to work with. I pretty much…it’s all me, my team, and my fans. We’re not coming from a commercial academy or anybody else’s idea. This is all me.
I started training in fighting and it was me against the world and it still is. I have a good couple of guys to work with that stayed with me and we all work for each other. I care about their well-being, just like I care about my fights.
I try to tell people that mixed martial arts is more of a team thing. Right now, and we were talking about this last night, but everything is so watered down and commercialized that all of the technique that you would have gotten at an old school fight camp, where everyone is bringing something to the table, like karate, real hardcore clean and traditional karate with the martial arts background and mentality, and then you have real Jiu Jitsu and a real wrestler and a real boxer/standup fighter, just the real old school mentality where you have a guy come in there to learn Jiu Jitsu or MMA; That’s just to paint a picture of what kind of gym I walked into when I first started training, you know?
I excelled at martial arts and then when I was able to learn Gracie Jiu Jitsu. That’s when I was able to take it to the next level and be able to fight against these guys. That’s where I got my defense, and no matter how small or skinny I was, I was going to be able to fight with these older guys. I was 16 tapping out 30-year-old steroid bodybuilders, and that’s a big deal when you’re a kid (laughing). Nobody believed you, but it was a big deal.
But now you have a lot of that going on in the world. You have a lot of gyms, but people aren’t really getting the real importance of these aspects and the importance of coming from a background with a Gi, and it’s important because if you want to take it to that next level, you have to train with guy’s every day. You have to like who you are hanging out with. You have to like them, live with them, and be around them. And if you don’t like each other, that makes it hard to live with them. If you are living to fight and fighting to live, then that’s all you are doing is training to fight, so that means that your life sucks because you have to live with these people that you don’t like and that you are gonna fight.
So I love my brothers. We train together and we fight together and we are like a family. That’s a good time and a good life. If I had this sketchy character in my house who was trying to come up with a way to win against me or take my money, I don’t want to live with that character in my house every day. You find a way to get rid of them or you will be thinking about that all day long instead of your training.
PC: Nick, you were put in a messed up situation because you went from a guy you care nothing about to a guy you somewhat looked up to and admired. How difficult was that for you?
ND: Yeah, well, I looked up to him for his art and his style. I didn’t really look up to him personally. I think he is a good guy. He’s not a bad guy at all, but I didn’t look up to him personally like a teacher or something.
Some of the things he did in the past, I didn’t agree with. He was originally a Ralph Gracie student, and what he learned there was some incredible things and that was 3 to 4 years before I even got put onto it. He was learning it from a real instructor and I didn’t have that at the time. I would have represented where I came from if I did have that. I just don’t think he put out the respect to Ralph that I would have.
I was also a martial artist first before I started learning Jiu Jitsu and I just remember him because he came from Ralph Gracie Jiu Jitsu and that’s what we have in common. We learned the same Jiu Jitsu and it shows up; blocking high guard, being in bad positions, and still being able to fight because we came from the same background that I came from pretty much.
I just have a little bit more respect for where I came from. You don’t see me going around saying, “Diaz MMA, Diaz MMA, Diaz Fight Gym and Diaz Training Camp!” I came from Cesar Gracie Jiu Jitsu when I was 16. I trained with Gil Castillo, Steve Heath, Dave Tirrell, and Jake Shields, and that’s who I am. That’s who I’m always going to be and that’s the reason why I am who I am today because I came from there.
And where did BJ Penn come from? He came from BJ Penn Hawaii or what? He don’t come from nothing. None of these people do. You know where Georges St. Pierre comes from? I just had a conversation about this last night.
PC: Where?
ND: He came from a Renzo Gracie Black Belt; I forget his name (John Dannaher). He is a Renzo Gracie Black Belt though and this is the guy who taught Georges St. Pierre. So Georges St. Pierre wouldn’t even be capable of being a contender or choking anybody or knowing dominant positions or any of that if he didn’t have the same Jiu Jitsu that I learned from the same family.
You only gotta go down a few generations to find out where this came from. We all got our Jiu Jitsu from the same place; BJ Penn, Georges St. Pierre and me. They gotta respect and understand where the martial arts that we use come from. They want to feel so special and important and say, “Look at me!”
I’m saying, “This is Cesar Gracie Jiu Jitsu,” and I represent where my training comes from. I always represent my boxing trainer and who he…Richard Perez and the people that I train with, you know? The only thing that I’m going to ever represent is my team that helped me get there, you know?
PC: You definitely represent your team to the fullest. I can’t let you go without getting your response to Georges St. Pierre saying he’s going to give you the worst beating in UFC history.
ND: Man, I’m not even sure he said that. When I see him, he don’t have nothing to say to me, you know? I had to come out and do what I had to do and fight, and come out all dramatic and act up, and next thing you know, I got a fight, so I’m sure he can’t blame me for that.
That fight is important anyway because that’s the fight that people want to see because I beat all of these important people. I have three Strikeforce belts. If I was him, I would be asking to fight me. If he would have automatically asked for it, then we wouldn’t be in this situation he’s in where he’s not saying nothing. He should have said, “This is who I want to fight.”
It’s not about being a challenger; it’s about who is champion at the weight. I’m holding three titles, you know? And I got that DREAM champion too, so you can make that four. It’s just as important as anything else and I know I would want to fight another champion before I would want to fight a high contender. Even if I know that high contender is better than the champion, I would still want to fight the champion because he’s considered the best guy. That’s the route I would have took. That’s the route I always take.
If you look at my record, I fought people I shouldn’t have even been in there with, like Chris Lytle. I never should have fought Chris Lytle, who had 20 fights when I was 1-0, but that’s what I did. I went out there and fought Chris Lytle for three rounds and took punches to the face at 18 years old, and I won that shit.