The day after Dustin Poirier turned the MMA world upside down by knocking out Conor McGregor at UFC 257, [autotag]Nate Diaz[/autotag] posted one thing on Instagram.
It was a photo of him sitting down and stretching on a mat, looking up and concentrating on something or someone. The caption, as tends to be the case with Diaz, was a bold statement.
The last of real martial arts in the game
https://www.instagram.com/p/CKcES99DpVt/
Diaz, who turns 36 in just a couple of months, has been at this for a long time – October 21, 2004 was when he made his professional debut at WEC 12. He’s “a real one,” as they say.
But there’s a segment of MMA fans – probably those who started tuning in because of Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor – who just don’t quite understand Diaz and what he (and his brother, Nick) stand for as it relates to the fight game. When they see Diaz speak of himself the way he does, they mock that it’s coming from someone with a 15-10 UFC record.
So what does Diaz mean when he calls himself “the last of real martial arts”? He answered that question when asked during his recent interview with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani. Here’s what Diaz had to say:
“How come these guys are all getting finished? It’s part of war, it’s the main objective of war: Go out there and come back home. And these guys all get finished off. And it irritates me, too. … When these guys get finished, people always talk sh*t, too. They’ll be like, ‘Nate sucks. He’s a .500 fighter. He’s a journeyman.’ They say sh*t like that about me. You guys are haters.
For one, I was here before all of you even got here. I was here first, fighting, putting on ‘Fight of the Nights.’ You guys all grew up on me – straight up. For two, all this time and all my records that you talk about, I have a sh*tty record. Guess what? You guys all got finished on your face – choked out, knocked out, stuff all over the place. I’ll take a hundred of my losses before I take one of those losses – straight up. So, that’s what I mean when I’m talking about real martial artists. You can’t even make it home to your family, dog. How you gonna be the best and the greatest?”
Love him or hate him, Diaz is as real as it gets in this sport. Let’s hope we see him back in the octagon sooner than later.
The Blue Corner is MMA Junkie’s blog space. We don’t take it overly serious, and neither should you. If you come complaining to us that something you read here is not hard-hitting news, expect to have the previous sentence repeated in ALL CAPS.
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