At UFC on Fox 2, Chael Sonnen will be taking on a very determined Mark Munoz, but that hasn’t stopped him from letting his mouth fly at every fighter possible. In a preview for tonights “Chael’s Corner” which is a part of “UFC Tonight” he states, ”I will be announcing who I’ll be fighting very soon, but I promise you this: If I was GSP or Jon Jones, I’d be swallowing real deep right now.”
With those words being thrown, another light heavyweight was not scared to throw around some bones in Sonnen’s direction. None other than former light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida had this to say via his twitter account,
“Chael Sonnen, I just got out of surgery, but can give you your gift inside the octagon with one arm and only if you accept the fight.”
Sonnen being someone who does not let actions slide had a response rather quickly for Machida…
“I don’t have time for “pee pee” mouth,” Sonnen replied via Twitter. ”All the time I can spare him is enough to cold cock him and walk away.”
Sonnen has made it clear that he hopes to make a move to the light heavyweight division. No time frame on that has been set, but his focus at this point should not be Jones, GSP or Machida, it should be straight on his UFC on Fox 2 opponent Mark Munoz.
UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre underwent surgery today on his ACL. GSP withdrew from his match with Nick Diaz at UFC 143, due to a blown ACL while training. According to his doctor in Los Angeles, California the surgery was a “huge success.”
Dr. ElAttrache says my surgery (ACL patellar tendon autograft) was huge success! Ligament very strong. Tks for support!
When Dana White announced that the champ was out of his fight with Diaz, it was said that he would be out at least 10 months. There is no time frame for his return to the octagon, however with the surgery success look for him to return within that 10 month window.
Nate Diaz picked up his biggest victory of his career at UFC 135 against Takanori Gomi. Diaz completely dominated the fight on the feet and eventually ended up transitioning to a sick armbar submission. In this interview with Karyn Bryant of MMA H.E.A.T following his win Diaz speaks about his respect for Gomi and how he used to favorite all of his YouTube videos. He also speaks about his friend and teammate Jake Shields situation, as well as the fact that Georges St-Pierre “dodged a bullet” by not fighting his brother Nick.
We don’t know the facts so to judge someone like Nick Diaz right off the hop, like so many have done, is wrong. As of right now the UFC is not saying much. All we know as fans is that Nick Diaz no showed two large press conferences to promote his fight with GSP at UFC 137 on October 29th. The reasons? Time will only tell. Caesar Gracie stated today that Nick is not a fan of press and media before a fight and that he deals with a disorder. We have seen Nick Diaz pull stunts like this before but not to this degree.
Right now I don’t believe anything that is coming out of Dana White’s mouth. This smells like damage control that was well planned out in advance. I mean they had the Carlos Condit vs. GSP promo video ready to go at the presser. I am not going to jump to speculation nor am I going to Judge Nick Diaz. What we have here is something brewing behind the scenes that we may not get answers to immediately. Conspiracy theory? Possibly. Right now I can’t come up with anything.
To be honest the UFC is very good at making news sound last minute. I have a feeling they had Carlos Condit on notice from day one. This is huge PPV money that the UFC doesn’t want to lose out on. Also when GSP fights in Vegas, the arena is 75% Canadian and sold out. There was no way that they were going to let Nick Diaz screw this up. With the unpredictability and known Marijuana use I’m very sure that the UFC had a backup plan, just in case he failed a drug test or played the disappearing act like allegedly what happened this week.
What we could be witnessing is a complete melt down from a very troubled athlete who has major inner demons he is working out. Remember Karo Parisyan? Same sort of deal, and let’s hope that there is help for people who have troubles controlling their thoughts and emotions.
The words Social anxiety has been thrown around. What people don’t get is that anxiety like that is a symptom of something else. All you have to do is watch the video that Ariel Helwani did with Nick after his fight with Paul Daley to see that there are some screws loose in the head of Nick Diaz. Look at how paranoid and angry he looks when talks about his fight that he won! However, when asked about his triathlon he lights up. You can see it. Yes this interview was done right after his fight with Daley but this hasn’t been the first time that Diaz comes off as paranoid and angry for no reason. What many have blown off as just a facade that Diaz puts on, could be far more than just a bad boy persona he plays for the camera. It could be something that goes a lot deeper.
Before we start calling Diaz a pussy let’s make sure that the dude is safe and we hear his side of the story. To me this whole things smells funny and I have a feeling that we are only seeing the beginning of what I really hope isn’t a tragic tale.
I don’t want to say that Nick Diaz deals with depression, but if you connect the dots over the years, it’s hard to ignore the evidence that it is the underlining problem. This is coming from someone who deals with the disease on a daily basis. Unfortunately a lot of “tough” guys and proud men and women try and hide it, thinking they can deal with it on their own. It usually doesn’t end well. They feel they don’t need to talk about it. Again I’m not saying that Nick Diaz has this problem. What I am saying is anxiety is a symptom of deep rooted depression.
All you have to do is look at the NHL with the suicide deaths of Wade Belak and Rick Rypien over the Summer to understand that even an athlete who is has made it to the “Big Show” can appear to have his shit together and the next day be gone. Let’s hope that Nick shows his head and then gets it fixed.
This is not the actions of a sane person and the UFC has to be careful in how they tread and “we” the fans need to lay off, especially when we don’t know all the particulars of what Nick Diaz is dealing with.
