The 10 Greatest Moments of Nick Diaz's MMA Career

If you fixate on one particular corner of the MMA fan sphere, it can seem like the sky is always falling. Some terrible injustice or indignity is constantly gripping the sport, harming and embarrassing it and all of its affiliates.

That mindset spread like hot, molten lava into corners far and wide Monday when the Nevada State Athletic Commission suspended Nick Diaz for five years because he failed multiple drug tests for smoking marijuana.

Without using this space to delve too deeply into the rightness or wrongness of the action, we can point to two inalienable facts. First, if Diaz, 32, serves the full suspension, it will effectively end his career. Second, the visceral reaction to the suspension served as a bracing reminder of Diaz's continued popularity.

With those two things in mind, it seems like the right time to look back on Diaz's career to this point. So here goes a top 10 list. Video clips included!

They are ranked based on the nature of the fight, the result and the caliber of opponent.

10. Nick Diaz Body-Blows Frank Shamrock into Retirement

You may know Frank Shamrock as one of the best fighters of MMA's early age. He was 36 years old but solidly an icon when he took on Diaz under the Strikeforce banner in 2009. It turned out to be his final professional outing.

The bout, which occurred at a catchweight of 179 pounds, was basically all Diaz from the word go. Diaz showed disrespect to Shamrock before and during the fight with trash talk and not a lot of defense. After a vicious body blow caused the TKO late in the second round, however, it was a different story.

 "It's hard to hate that guy," Diaz said of Shamrock, according to ESPN's Greg Savage. "He's been doing what I want to do and saying what I want to say for a long time."

Though Shamrock vowed to return, he never did. It was Diaz's fourth straight win by way of knockout.

9. The Stockton Bad Boy Overcomes the Whitemare

Marius "Whitemare" Zaromskis was (and still is) an insanely dangerous and high-wattage striker. Zaromskis has never been afraid to fire off a good old-fashioned somersault kick in there.

But on January 30, 2010, he was no match for a Mr. Diaz.

Zaromskis flew into Miami as a winner in nine of his last 10. For a while moment, it looked like he might make it 10 of 11, as a knee dropped Diaz like a bag of dirt, but (thanks to a little ref interference) Zaromskis couldn't quite close the deal.

The knockdown seemed to energize Diaz, who got to his feet and turned his volume-striking game to 11, eventually forcing the TKO, capturing for himself a little trinket known as the Strikeforce welterweight championship belt.

8. Did He Just Lie Down?

This moment loses points, because, well, Diaz lost the fight. At least he lost until both men failed drug tests and it became a no-contest.

But you're nuts if this, from January's UFC 183, isn't on your list of the guy's greatest moments. All those years of Anderson Silva's in-cage opponent taunting (coupled with what at times appeared to be a fair amount of false humility outside) was thrown directly back in his face by an undersized, overmatched and unapologetic Diaz.

Diaz even held his own in the fight before ultimately being outpointed for what was, from a pure fighting standpoint, a relatively benign decision win for Silva, the former middleweight kingpin who was just returning from a long injury layoff. But it's Diaz's unbridled troll job that will live in fan memories.

7. Staggering Scott Smith

Another catchweight bout (this one happening at 180 pounds), this one featuring a noted power brawler in Scott Smith.

In taking this win, Diaz showcased the two primary characteristics of his boxing: its volume and its relative lack of power. Diaz set records for strikes thrown and landed in a single round, yet couldn't get the knockout. That might have something to do with Smith's granite chin, but still. 

Either way, Diaz meted out plenty of punishment, actually forcing Smith to crawl to his stool at one point. A rear-naked choke sealed the deal in the early part of the third and ended an entertaining, if fairly one-sided, slugfest.

6. The Clock Strikes "Noons"

Forget Georges St-Pierre. Forget Paul Daley. Forget everybody. Of all the people Nick Diaz has actually fought, KJ Noons stands out as perhaps his fiercest grudge.

When they locked horns for Strikeforce in October 2010, it was a rematch of a fight Noons had won three years earlier to become the first lightweight champ of Elite XC.

Now Diaz was the champ, and the rivalry was quickly renewed. In calling for a rematch, Diaz coined one of his most memorable catch phrases: "Don't be scared, homie!" 

Never one to take a high road, Noons called Diaz, among other things, a "trash-talking, pot-smoking chump" in the run-up to the rematch.

It was a hard-fought match and it wasn't a pretty thing to watch, but Diaz got his revenge and defended his Strikeforce title.

5. Nick Diaz vs. Carlos Condit

Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images

This fight illustrates a few things. First, how enduring Diaz's career really is, and second, that he's the Seinfeld of the MMA Internet. You never realize how many quotes and running gags he spawned until you really sit down and count them.

To this day, "Diaz rounds 1,2 and 5" remains a running Internet joke and/or grudge, referencing the rounds people think Diaz won and indicating a belief that Diaz, not Carlos Condit, won this entertaining bout at UFC 143, which ultimately saw Condit stick-and-move his way to a decision win and the interim welterweight title.

This also marks the introduction of the "spinning s--t."

"I threw a spinning backfist or something, and he said 'We're throwing spinning s--t now?'," Condit said after the fight. "I kind of had to smile at that one and just went, 'Yep. Yes, I am.'"

4. Robbie Lawler Bites the Dust

To this day, Robbie Lawler has exactly one knockout loss on his record. The man who accomplished that feat? Say it with me now.

Granted, this wasn't the Lawler who is now widely considered to be the baddest man on the planet. But it was still Robbie Freaking Lawler, and he was a significant favorite to handle Diaz.

It went another way. It was 2004, UFC 47 and it was something to behold. A surprising right hand—which Diaz, who is right-handed, uses as his lead hand—ended the proceedings in the second round.

I mean, watch the video. He was stalking Lawler down with his hands up, yelling out things like "C'mon b---h!" and "Stockton!" and so forth. And then he'd tag him with a combo. 

Can you imagine anyone doing this to Robbie Lawler? I can. Say it with me now.

3. Nick Diaz Rocks BJ Penn

Isaac Brekken/Associated Press

Diaz (right) vs. Penn

This contest was significant in part because it was Diaz's first for the UFC in nearly five years. It was also significant because B.J. Penn was still considered an elite welterweight at the time.

In fact, some oddsmakers at Best Fight Odds gave Penn the edge, and in the first round, that presumption seemed correct. Penn scored a perfect takedown and controlled the action from the ground and the clinch.

But what happened after was perhaps the most Nick Diaz fight Nick Diaz has ever fought.

Nick Diaz and his bottomless gas tank came after Penn, who appeared to flag and flag hard. As the minutes wore on, Diaz repeatedly walked Penn down against the fence, landing those tumbling punch combinations and jawing the whole time.

After the fight, Diaz uttered yet another one of his famous soundbites, yelling out "where you at, George?" in reference to champion Georges St-Pierre. Diaz eventually got, and lost, that fight, which is not one of his greatest moments.

But this was. Afterward, Penn was so beaten up and downtrodden he announced his retirement in the cage, though he did ultimately return for two more fights.

2. The Dervish of Diaz vs. Daley

One of the best single rounds in MMA history, right here.

The volume of Diaz. The power-kickboxing base of Englishman Paul Daley. This one had the makings, the deliverings and every single one of the trimmings.

Early on, Daley dropped Diaz during one of Diaz's little hands-free moments, and a few ground strikes later it seemed over. But Diaz somehow weathered the storm.

And then he stormed back.

When the smoke cleared, Daley was unconscious against the fence with only three seconds remaining in the round. 

Behind this momentum, Diaz would re-enter the UFC, where the aforementioned Penn awaited him. And we saw how that one went.

1. The Gogo Heard 'Round the World

It's still so easy to forget that Diaz is, at his core, a jiu-jitsu player.

This fight should help you remember. 

Back in his earlier days, Diaz was much more submission hunter than head hunter. He would even go for crazy stuff like this little doozy at Pride 33 back in 2007. 

Diaz, at the ripe old age of 23, submitted the Pride lightweight champ with a gogoplata, one of the rarest (if not the very rarest) jiu-jitsu moves in MMA. Pure brilliance.

Unfortunately, the fight also is emblematic of the other pole of Diaz's career, as a positive test for marijuana voided the win. The more things change...

Scott Harris covers MMA for Bleacher Report. For more stuff like this, follow Scott on Twitter.