(Seriously, Nick, nobody wants to see this happen.)

After conceding earlier this week that a much anticipated bout between his protegee, Nick Diaz and the Stockton fighter’s nemesis, Jason "Mayhem" Miller will likely not happen, Cesar Gracie has turned his sights on another opponent for his charge to fight next.

In an interview he did this week, Gracie revealed that he is making a case for a Diaz-Paul Daley match-up and that they could be ready in a month if Strikeforce will put the fight together.

"I would take that fight right now for January," Gracie said.

As far as the fight with Miller not going down, Gracie, who points out that moving up to middleweight to fight a fighter who isn’t ranked in the top ten by any outlets would be a lose-lose situation for Diaz, says that the blame should rest squarely on the shoulders of Mayhem.


"’Mayhem’ is now saying he’ll only cut down to 183. Well, with a one-pound allowance, that’s 184," Gracie pointed out. "He weighed in at 184 for the Jake Shields fight (at ‘Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers’). So he’s saying he won’t cut anything.Of course [Nick] would jump up to middleweight] if it’s [for] a belt or [if he was] fighting someone very significant. Anderson Silva, for example. If somehow the stars aligned and Nick was offered that fight, Nick would take that fight at 185. But for him to fight at a weight class he’s never fought at before against ‘Mayhem’ Miller – no disrespect to Miller, I think he’s a great fighter – unfortunately he doesn’t hold any ranking in the MMA community. There’s no winning out of it.When people are getting paid, it’s the fight business, not just fighting. In the fight business, if you call someone out, that means you better be able to move to their weight class or at least meet in the middle. He’s refusing to meet in the middle." 

Miller, who says it’s obvious that Gracie is protecting his fighter, points out that making the weight cut to 170 just isn’t possible for him any more and that if Diaz is the gamer he claims to be, he should fight at whatever weight necessary to make the fight happen.

"Maybe Nick isn’t that bright, but Cesar Gracie seems to be very intelligent. He wants to protect his fighter. Nick is saying he’s not scared, homie. So let’s do the fight. It’s ridiculous [for them to expect me to cut down to 170]. Especially not in that timeframe. I would have to go do some homosexual triathlons to get to that weight. I’m not Lance Armstrong."

Two questions:

Did Mayhem not learn anything about the recent Joe Rogan, Tomas Rios debacle? 

Is there such a thing as a homosexual triathlon?

Anyway, Strikeforce seems to be the only party that hasn’t given up hope that the Diaz-Miller fight will happen.

The promotion’s CEO, Scott Coker says he plans on revisiting the situation, but then again he’s been saying the same thing about talking to CBS about whether or not they still have a TV deal, so I guess we have to take what he says with a grain of salt.

"I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to bridge the gap.We’re going to have more conversations, but at the end of the day, if they don’t want to make it happen for whatever reason, it’s not going to happen," Coker said. "At some point, we’re just going to move on."

Coker says that Daley is in contention to meet Diaz some time in 2011, but said he wants to make sure he can’t salvage the Miller-Diaz bout first since the foundation for the fight has already built and they wouldn’t really have to sell the bout. 

"After Paul’s performance, it puts him right in the thick of things," he said. "Daley’s name was brought up. I think that would be an amazing fight myself because styles make fights, and those two styles would be explosive. But in saying that, I would like to fully explore the ‘Mayhem’ situation before we commit to what we’re going to do."

I don’t see Diaz-Daley going any differently than Shields-Daley did, but you never know if Nick will want to prove he can hang with an elite striker like he did with KJ Noons. I just hope one of these fights happens before Nick’s contract expires and he jumps ship to the UFC.