Nick Diaz vs. Jason Miller: Could It Happen?

Nick Diaz never leaves a statement unanswered, does he?

Those of you who, unlike myself, were lucky enough to see Michael "The Voice" Schiavello conduct his "The Voice Vs..." program on HDNet opposite the always-colorful Strikeforce middleweight, Jason "Mayhem" Miller, probably heard his less-than-loving words for Team Cesar Gracie's always hungry welterweight standout and the current Strikeforce Welterweight Champion, Nick Diaz.

Those of you may or may not have heard Nick's equally-not-so-loving response.

Tito and Chuck. BJ and Jens. Rampage and Rashad.

Now Nick and Jason.

Some feuds are just really intense.

I think the only other time I could see Mayhem being this angry is if Schiavello mentioned Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza.

Seriously, Mayhem and Diaz have a really intense dislike for each other ever since Mayhem called out Jake Shields and that infamous incident in Nashville happened.

"Intense dislike" is sugarcoating it, which I usually don't like doing. The tension is starting to reach a boiling point very quickly and I don't see it coming close to cooling out anytime in the near future.

So the logical thing to do would be to speculate what would happen if Mayhem vs. Diaz ever happened in the Strikeforce cage.

I doubt it would matter if there was a shot at the middleweight title at stake, nor do I think it'd matter if Diaz put his welterweight belt on the line.

This one runs a little bit deeper than titles and recognition. This one I think might be about respect more than anything.

Nick and Mayhem, I have to say are pretty well-rounded. Nick is a guy who boxes when he stands and Mayhem is a kickboxer.

Obviously, a brown belt in BJJ you never count out, but Nick's got better BJJ and he's shown that he has good Jiu-Jitsu on the ground.

That's where I see Nick wanting the fight, but who knows if Mayhem might have his own reasons for wanting the fight on the ground.

For a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Miller isn't too bad. Heck, he's actually finished some fights on the ground. Actually, most of his Ws came by way of submission (13 Subs, 5 KO in his career).

Skill-wise, Mayhem could have a good chance of hanging with Nick on the ground and on the feet, though maybe the feet is where Mayhem wants it.

Maybe he could take the legs of Nick out of the equation by kicking them, thus slowing Nick down not only in the movement department, but also in the boxing department.

It's tough to throw and land some good shots when your legs are weakened.

Nick could wear down Mayhem like Shields did and then use his own Jiu-Jitsu to control Mayhem on the ground or to get a choke in on him, but that's just speculation on how it could go.

There's no telling the exact way that the fight would happen.

There's not even any telling if the fight would happen, especially after the brawl and the fact that both couldn't fight for three months.

Those three months are rapidly wrapping up though.

Scott Coker can try to keep them out of each other's paths, but can't ignore the inevitability that this fight will one day happen.

Let 'em loose, Coker. You can't hold them back anymore.

(Photo courtesy of MMA Weekly)

**UPDATE (7/29/10): I apologize for an unintentional misdirection placed in the article. The program referred to in this piece "The Voice Vs. Mayhem Miller" has yet to air on HDNet. Andrew Gladstone has the preview to the aforementioned program here. Once again, I apologize to those who were under the belief that the program had already aired, as the program will not air until tomorrow night, 10 PM Eastern Time.