Nick Diaz’s underwhelming performance in his last UFC outing, in which he lost to Robbie Lawler via third-round stoppage, did not go unnoticed. His coach, Cesar Gracie, acknowledged that on Submission Radio, revealing that Diaz has endured neck surgery and was unable to train ahead of the fight.
“So Nick, he went into that fight and his neck was pretty messed up. Robbie’s a great, tough fighter and everything. And, Nick was doing great. And then you kind of see Nick kind of just kind of fading as the fight wore on. So, Nick had an operation very recently here seven weeks ago. So, two of the discs had ruptured in his neck before the fight. So, he was having numbness of the hands. That’s why he didn’t make 170. He fought at 185, is cause it was impossible to train. He just didn’t have any strength. He didn’t have what you’re used to, the Nick Diaz, you know, he didn’t have it.”
Cesar Gracie: Nick Diaz Fought Robbie Lawler With Neck Injury, “Pretty Much Had To” Take Fight
Nick Diaz, claims Gracie, was fighting because he needed to make some money. “Nick had to pretty much take that fight. There was a lot of things weighing in on him. What people don’t know is that the commission in Vegas was still demanding their money from — remember the marijuana test that we didn’t pass? They said ‘you still owe us that $75,000.’ I think it was some insane amount.
You know, it was like, ‘What? You still have to pay it? Even though it’s legal now?’ When that happened, it wasn’t, and we want to, and so we gotta. ‘You’re gonna have to deduct it from your fight purse.’
And Nick really hadn’t signed the best contract in the world. And so what happened was, they said, we’ll pay you more money, but you have to fight this fight here, and on this date. It was a thing. It was like, if you don’t take that fight, you’re almost gonna fight for free, you know, by the time [you pay taxes and the fine].
Obviously, people know, that’s not a secret, he had some tax issues in the past. He had to pay that fine, which, you know, it was just, you had to do it. It was like, well, Nick, he had his back on the wall. And it was one of those unfortunate things where he had to fight, and that’s it. And that’s what happened. It was one of those things in life and, and he manned up and he did it. He did it.”
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