Perhaps Nick Diaz should consider changing camps.
I’m sure he would believe that thought to be blasphemy — considering his team’s territorial views regarding gyms (his brother Nate scoffed at the notion of letting someone from another gym train with them part-time).
But Nick clearly isn’t happy with the way his “team” helped him prepare for his UFC 158 welterweight title fight against Georges St-Pierre, saying at the post-fight press conference that if he were to ever get another chance to fight for the belt he hoped his teammates “would try to help me out a little bit.”
It’s not the first time he has thrown his team under the bus, as it were. He also made veiled references during his infamous UFC 137 post-fight press conference rant to not getting the proper aid in training from his teammates prior to his October 2011 fight with B.J. Penn.
What does his trainer/manager Cesar Gracie have to say about the matter? Not much. In fact, he often acts like Diaz is as much a stranger to him as Diaz is to most of the MMA community.
When Diaz went AWOL for his required press appearances in 2011, Gracie was unaware of his whereabouts. When Diaz blurted out after the GSP fight that he’s never paid taxes in his life, Gracie essentially washed his hands of the matter, even though it seems that Diaz had some expectation of assistance from his manager.
This is in stark contrast to GSP’s team, which is led by Tristar Gym head trainer Firas Zahabi. He and St-Pierre are close friends going way back, and are almost always in sync. (In fact, that may be an understatement. At the UFC 158 open workouts, I asked Zahabi about the misunderstandings between the two fighters on a conference call that led to a heated verbal exchange. Zahabi said he told Georges “philosophers 1,000 years from now are going to be studying this dialogue and trying to figure out the mysteries of miscommunication.” Later St-Pierre delivered virtually the same line to a group of reporters.)
It’s clear that Zahabi always has his fighter’s back, both in private and in public. And it was Zahabi, not St-Pierre, who last week revealed that the champion fought Diaz with an Achilles injury and a fever — which could have easily explained why GSP grew tired in the latter rounds of the bout, something rarely seen from him.
Yet during the UFC 158 post-fight press conference, St-Pierre didn’t cite that as a reason when admitting he had gotten tired. He simply said it was “weird.” This is because he didn’t want to offer anything that could be viewed as an excuse for a less-than-spectacular performance — even in a win. (In fact, he even bit his tongue in the UFC on FUEL TV post-fight interview, deciding not to play the “Cesar Gracie game” and instead to “take the high road.”)
Meanwhile, Diaz did the opposite. He came out and said he didn’t want to make any excuses … and proceeded to offer a half-dozen, including one that also seemed to blame his team, for not helping him to know what time he should go to sleep before the fight. (Diaz said he could offer a million excuses, which is apropos, because if you had to pick one that should rank as the one millionth, that would have to be it.)
While Diaz’ frequent comments seem to suggest he and his team are clueless when it comes to joint game planning, Zahabi takes it a level where he makes it a seamless process for his fighters.
Regarding watching fight film, Zahabi said, “I will spend hours analyzing and nitpicking (video with trainer John Danaher) and bringing that information to Georges … I really believe in training the game plan. I don’t even need to tell my fighter what the game plan is. They come in and (I say,) ‘Today we’re doing this, this and this. Why? Because this is what I’m fearing is going to happen in the fight.’ So we put the guys in the situations we think he’s going to see and just train the game plan. They don’t even need to know what the game plan is.”
This intricate and devoted approach to preparation is not lost on GSP.
You can also see the contrast in attitudes in the other fighters at the respective gyms.
Nate Diaz got into a backstage verbal confrontation with Tristar’s Mike Ricci, who was also a winner over Colin Fletcher at UFC 158. Ricci said it was all Diaz (and I have no reason not to believe he’s right).
Meanwhile, Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu fighter Jake Shields had to be rebuffed by Quebec’s athletic commission for trying to check on St-Pierre’s hand wraps more than once.
Then he tweeted this…
I checked GSP’s glove and the wrap looked shady…now commission won’t let me back.Not saying he’s cheating but wtf?!
— Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) March 17, 2013
(“Not saying he’s cheating but…” sounds a lot like “Not giving an excuse but…”)
As usual, Zahabi stuck up for his fighter first and foremost, defending the situation both during and after the fact.
Lastly, you can see the respective success of the camps in the results of the fighters. All three full-time Tristar fighters at UFC 158 were victorious (including John Makdessi, who defeated Daron Cruickshank) and two more had wins this weekend in other promotions: Brandon Thatch submitted Mike Rhodes at Resurrection Fighting Alliance 7 Friday night in Colorado, while Edmonton’s Ryan Ford knocked out Brendan Tierney at Aggression Fighting Championship 17 Saturday night in his hometown.
Makdessi’s performance was very GSP-like — employing a smart, patient game plan that I would bet was well instituted by Zahabi and Co. — while Ricci also fought to a clear, if not methodical, decision win.
Ford, a fellow welterweight to St-Pierre, said he sparred and grappled with the champ in preparation for their bouts and he talked about training at Tristar as being “part of a family.”
On the other side, the Diaz brothers are both coming off losses, while Jake Shields failed a drug test after his last fight (sound familiar, Nick?) They may be a family there too, but right now they seem like a “dysfunctional” one.
Perhaps the best thing for Nick Diaz to get his career back on the winning path would be a change of scenery… and a group of teammates and trainers like they have at Tristar.