UFC President Dana White says former Strikeforce welterweight champion Nick Diaz is back to his old ways of missing events to promote his next fight against Georges St-Pierre.
However, a lawyer from Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is disputing White’s claim. MMA Fighting reported the story first on Sunday.
"Nick Diaz would be an interesting Countdown show if we could get him to show up for those," White said when a reporter posed the idea of a Nick Diaz video blog at the UFC on FUEL TV 7 post-fight conference.
"Imagine how good his Countdown show would be … How about if he had a professionally shot, by professionals, the best in the business, the best at cutting and producing features on athletes, imagine how f--king good that would be.”
“First we've got to get him to show up for the f--king interviews, and then we can do it,” White said, before stating that the controversial Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt had missed three scheduled tapings.
The UFC head honcho’s words were anything but shocking, considering Diaz lost his first opportunity at UFC gold at UFC 137 in Oct. 2011 when he no-showed multiple press conferences for the pay-per-view event.
White punished Diaz by making him fight BJ Penn instead of champ Georges St-Pierre, though Diaz beat the former two-division title holder via convincing decision.
However, Jonathan Tweedale, a lawyer from Diaz’s camp, disputed White’s take on the situation.
"Dana is mistaken," Tweedale wrote via e-mail to MMA Fighting. "There is no 'crew rolling around Stockton,' and Nick did not 'miss' three interviews.”??
"In fact, several earlier dates were arranged without Nick's knowledge and with no notice to Nick. When Nick learned what had happened, I assisted him in arranging a date and time directly (Thursday, February 14).”
“Nick arrived early and was in good spirits at that February 14 date -- the one and only date he knew about in advance. Nick requires things to be done in an organized and orderly manner. That is the kind of professional he is."
The Stockton, California native will finally get his crack at GSP next month at UFC 158, assuming White doesn’t remove him from the main event last-minute once again. This is a legitimate possibility as 170-pound contenders Rory MacDonald, Johny Hendricks and Jake Ellenberger are all booked for the same event.