UFC 137 Fight Card: Nick Diaz Outsmarts GSP, BJ Penn, Dana White and MMA Fans

I’m going to be up front with you guys right off the bat: this whole article is about nothing more than that cruel, spiteful b*tch known as fate.

When it was announced that champ Georges St.-Pierre was pulling out of his UFC 137 fight with Nick Diaz, Carlos Condit fans went through the usual stages of MMA grief: denial, anger, extreme anger, declarations that you’re boycotting the card, wild conspiracy theories or finding a way to blame it all on Dana White/M-1 Global/$kala before cruising right into acceptance. Par for the course, really.

Except I think I know one guy who wasn’t all that bothered by the news. In fact, I’m pretty sure Nick Diaz was beaming when he read the news of St.-Pierre’s injury.

I’m kidding, of course. Nick Diaz would never smile, and he certainly wouldn’t beam. He likely just mean-mugged his computer screen while brushing bong smoke away from his face and shooting the UFC 137 media schedule the double bird. Or as they call it in Stockton: winning.

Remember how much crap we all gave Diaz for getting dropped from his main event title with GSP? Remember all the hand wringing and “I told you so’s” and preachy lessons on the proper way fighters should handle themselves? It was like all the MMA media turned into the last 5 minutes of a “G.I. Joe” cartoon, with Diaz as the poor innocent little kid who didn’t know that you should never go near downed power lines or skate on newly frozen ponds.

Well, don’t we all feel pretty stupid now.

The weed in Stockton must be incredible, because it literally allowed Diaz to see through time. When Diaz no-showed back to back press conferences, he wasn’t being unprofessional. He was being smart. GSP was eventually going to pull out of the fight anyway, so why take the time out of training, making shaky “while you’re driving” YouTube videos, and avoiding Jason Miller?

Imagine if Diaz hadn’t been bounced from the 137 main event. In that case, once GSP was injured the UFC would likely have bumped Carlos Condit into the main event as per reality. That would leave us a card of Diaz vs. Condit as main event, with BJ Penn either bounced from the card entirely (likely), or put into a last minute fight with Kos or someone similar.

No offense to any fighter listed, but Diaz vs. Condit just isn’t a “money fight” (as exciting as it likely would be) in the same way GSP vs. Condit, GSP vs. Diaz or even Penn vs. Diaz is. It’s the Strikeforce champ vs. the WEC champ on a UFC PPV – at the last moment, no less.

When Diaz was bounced from the GSP fight, all us know-it-all fans talked about how much money Diaz had just cost himself by losing a PPV main event spot.

But he hasn’t lost that spot now, has he? There he is, back in the main event, back in the event name, back mean mugging humanity in the center of the poster.

All he lost was an opponent – trading the extremely dangerous GSP for the less daunting (and likely much more exciting) BJ Penn. It’d be like if someone offered you a million dollars to climb Mount Everest, you got high and didn’t show up to the press conference, than Everest goes down with an injury and you get the same money to climb BJ Penn instead.

Wait, I think I messed up that metaphor somehow.

My point is that Nostradamus himself couldn’t have played this any better. Nick Diaz has been playing dumb this whole time. This is a Lex Luthor-esque manipulator of people and events we’re dealing with, folks. It wouldn’t surprise me if Diaz was somehow responsible for St.-Pierre’s injury. Let the conspiracy theories flow.

Compared to this guy, Chael Sonnen is  small time. I mean he can’t even keep his story straight regarding his cheating, lying, fraud and overt racism. He also can’t keep out of triangle chokes, so a visionary of the future this guy isn’t.

Nick Diaz is winning here to an almost sickening degree. Case in point: yesterday’s 137 conference call, which Diaz decided was not important so he slept in with his phone turned off. And what is the UFC or anyone going to do about it?

BJ Penn only battles himself as a metaphor, not as a PPV main event.