(Georges is so pumped to fight Diaz, he wears his fight gear while he hobbles around outside all of the local Stockton head shops.)

With all of the criticism Georges St-Pierre has gotten the past few years for his conservative style of fighting, sometimes people overlook just how much the dominant UFC welterweight kingpin purveys the blueprint of how a champion should act both inside and outside of the Octagon.

In a recent interview he did for UFC.com, St-Pierre said that because he hasn’t been active lately due to a pair of knee injuries, he doesn’t consider himself to be the UFC welterweight title holder anymore and that he will need to beat the winner of the interim title bout between Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit Saturday night to once again become the champ.

(“See, where I come from bitching like that will get you backhanded.”)

Well, it didn’t take long for Team Cesar Gracie to return fire on BJ Penn after “The Prodigy” launched a random Twitter attack on Nick Diaz yesterday.

Here’s what they had to say about Penn’s latest bitchfest via a posting made today on Cesar’s official blog, GracieFighter.com.

Say It Ain’t So BJ…

JANUARY 6, 2012

BJ Penn has apparently not come to terms with the beating he received at the hands of Nick Diaz. Below is his latest posting on his Twitter account:

@nickdiaz209 Look how much bigger you are in this pic..I thought you were gonna scrap from the beginning homie? What was that coward fence holding strategy to tire out the smaller man? Street fighter my ass! I made you fight like glass jaw @jonfitchdotnet poser!
I’ll be ready for that weak bs next time we fight!

At some point it is up to those around you to protect you from yourself. To take you aside and let you know you are wrong and help save you from your folly. Unfortunately for Penn he is surrounded by “Yes Men” that are unwilling to do that. The outcome will be predictable, resulting in a fighter that will never push himself to the fullest and will always have excuses for his losses.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/ProMMANow)

You would think that Nick Diaz’s camp would cool it with all of the accusations about Georges St-Pierre being scared or faking an injury to get out of fighting their boy now that they got the desired result, but that’s not how they do things in Stockton, evidently.

Dring a media scrum after the UFC 137 presser, Cesar Gracie was asked, in a somewhat baited way if he thought GSP’s injury was legit and he didn’t hold back, although he made about as much sense as his protegee.

“He ran past me earlier. I mean, he literally RAN past me, so… Look, he’s a great guy. He’s a black belt under [my cousin] Renzo Gracie. I don’t know the guy that well, personally, but I’m gonna tell you guys something right now… Nick Diaz missed a press conference and he’s here and [he] fought,” Gracie sort of explained. “The guy that went to the press conference didn’t fight. That’s all I gotta say about it. Nick…Yeah, he got kicked out, he’s this…he’s the bad guy… We didn’t go to what Nick called, ‘the beauty pageant,’ but come fight night you guys saw what he’s made of and he showed up and he did everything he had to and the guys that made the press conference, they weren’t here tonight, so you be the judge. You know what I mean?”

No, we don’t know what you mean since it makes no sense. So let us get this straight, somehow GSP faked an injury to get out of fighting Nick, even though he was scheduled to face Carlos Condit when the injury occurred. Wait, what?!

(Video courtesy of IronForgesIron)

Our friend ZombieProphet from IronForgesIron.com always comes through with videos of shows and events we forgot about and the UFC 137 countdown show that aired last night is no exception.

Cesar Gracie has some interesting observations about BJ Penn and he refers to the former UFC lightweight and welterweight champ as “Superman,” but says that his protegee Nick Diaz is the Hawaiian scrapper’s kryptonite.

I don’t know about you guys, but this fight gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

Check out part two after the jump so you can hear MMA JayT mancrush, Cheick Kongo talk about how he wasn’t out in his last fight with Pat Barry, in spite of his trainer’s assertion that he lost consciousness at least once in the bout.

(“Well at the very least, you’re paying me back for all this bottled water.”)

BJ Penn, Nick Diaz, Matt Mitrione, and Cheick Kongo were scheduled to participate in a UFC 137 media call at 2 p.m. ET today, and three of them called in on time. The other one, obviously, was Nick Diaz. According to twitter updates from Ariel Helwani, the UFC and Diaz’s manager/trainer Cesar Gracie began frantically searching for the former Strikeforce welterweight champ when he no-showed the call. Gracie was surprised by his fighter’s absence, but offered the explanation that he only found out about the media call 24 hours in advance and he wasn’t sure whether it was still on after GSP pulled out due to injury.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/NickDiaz209)

You would think that after screwing up badly enough to have a title shot yanked away and with your future career with your employer hanging by a thread as a result, you might want to, I don’t know, apologize and show some sort of emotion that resembles remorse for your actions.

If you’re Nick Diaz, you pretty much do the opposite of that.

Diaz killed all speculation that he was possibly passed out in an alley somewhere in Stockton, when, just hours after news broke that because of back-to-back missed media appearances his UFC 137 shot at welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre would instead go to Carlos Condit, he posted a video blog titled, “Looks like someone don’t want me to win!” in which he complained once again that he was getting screwed over by pretty much everyone, from UFC president Dana White to his longtime manager and trainer Cesar Gracie.

(“‘aters gonna ‘ate.” Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.)

George St. Pierre‘s genius as an MMA fighter is his ability to put his opponents exactly where they don’t want to be. Against strikers (see: Alves, Hardy), that usually means St. Pierre taking top position on the mat and not giving them an inch of space. Against wrestlers (see: Koscheck, Shields), it usually means keeping the fight standing and jabbing them into a living death.

But in both cases, it hasn’t translated into dramatic finishes recently. Aside from his corner-stoppage win over BJ Penn at UFC 94, the last time that GSP has legitimately TKO’d or submitted an opponent was during his rematch with Matt Serra, over three years ago. Now two months away from his UFC 137 title defense against Nick Diaz, St. Pierre has picked up a reputation among some fans and observers as a “safe” fighter. One of his recent critics is Diaz’s trainer/manager Cesar Gracie, who shared some less-than-kind words to Full Contact Fighter:

(Video courtesy of MyFoxTAMPABAY)

It’s too bad we didn’t notice this charity auction item until after bidding on it ended, because we know a few of you may have been interested.

WWE wrestler-turned MMA hopeful Dave Bautista (AKA “Batista”) was offering a one-hour training session with him and a Cesar Gracie black belt (please let it be Nick Diaz) at his newly-opened gym in Tampa Bay and a follow-up lunch as part of a charity auction for Ovarian cancer. Now, I’m not sure if our valuation skills are a bit skewed, but we’re guessing that the deal isn’t quite worth the $2,500 they estimated — especially when the winning bidder had to provide his or her own airfare and accommodations for the lesson.

By Jason Moles

Man, they sure are lowering the bar these days. According to TMZ, Dave Bautista (aka former WWE professional wrestler “Batista“) and renowned MMA trainer Cesar Gracie have created a new tag team, and will be opening a Gracie Fighter Jiu Jitsu franchise in Tampa. Though the gym is currently only open to “close martial artist friends,” it will be opened to the public next week; you can see a couple photos of the joint here.

The last we heard about Bautista’s MMA career is that it was dead thanks to the UFC acquiring Strikeforce. I’m not sure if I’m more surprised that Bautista can’t stop pretending he’s a real fighter or that Cesar is whoring out the Gracie family name like that. I hope his cousin Renzo gives him a good talking to about this whole ordeal.

(Post-fight press conferences are about to get even more uncomfortable for Ariel Helwani. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle)

Following up yesterday’s bombshell about Nick Diaz‘s October 29th return to the UFC against Georges St. Pierre, USA Today and MMAFighting checked in with Diaz’s manager Cesar Gracie and picked up a couple more details. Here are the brass tacks…

- Diaz has signed a new eight-fight deal with Zuffa, which allows him to fight for both the UFC and Strikeforce. But the plan for Diaz isn’t necessarily to jump back and forth between promotions. Asked if the new deal marked the end of Diaz’s run in Strikeforce, Gracie replied, “Hopefully. If he’s back in Strikeforce, I would imagine that’s because he lost his next fight.”

(If triathlons allowed you to punch other racers, and the participants got paid millions of dollars to do it, well, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Props: CombatLifestyle.com)

Despite that totally official press release claiming that Jeff Lacy had already signed for the fight, Strikeforce welterweight champion Nick Diaz will not be facing Lacy in a boxing match. In fact, Diaz will be sticking to the sport that he seemingly can’t stand — and it’s becoming very obvious what’s convincing him to stay.

According to a new press release, Diaz will continue pursuing his MMA career instead of professional boxing, “as it has been deemed that it be in Nick’s best interest to focus on his primary combat sport and profession…an opportunity arose for Nick to make a different sort of history in his primary field of fighting.”

(Compared to some of the things he’s experienced in boxing, Jeff Lacy (right) is excited to work with a serious, sober professional like Nick Diaz.)

Credit Jeff “Left Hook” Lacy, his camp and promoter for continuing to act like this proposed boxing match with Nick Diaz is a done deal, even though our suspicion is that Diaz and Cesar Gracie are just using Lacy and Co. to turn up the heat on Zuffa, LLC. Don’t get us wrong, we totally believe that Diaz is down to fight the former super middleweight champion … but likely only if the UFC can’t or won’t make a bout with Georges St. Pierre happen in the near future. Whatever the case, Lacy and his people are getting a nice publicity rub off this.

Case-in-point, Lacy got himself invited on ESPN 1100 in Las Vegas with Steve Cofield this week, where he sounded pretty dumbfounded that Diaz would want to “step into his ring,” but said he was totally willing to take advantage of the situation. In fairness, Lacy was actually somewhat complementary of MMA, saying he’s become a big fan, but then went on to compare the striking in our sport to glorified Toughman competitions. Lacy’s quotes are after the jump.

By Jason Moles

CagePotato recently spoke with the former five-time Super Heavyweight kickboxing champion and current head coach/trainer at Roufusport in Milwaukee. We discussed his beginnings in combat sports, his take on UFC superfights, the upcoming Anthony Pettis vs. Clay Guida matchup, and what he really thinks about Dana White asking teammates to fight each other. Check it out after the jump.

CAGEPOTATO.COM: First and foremost, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to talk with us at CagePotato. For those who may not be aware, can you tell us how you got started in martial arts?

Duke Roufus: I started when I was four years old at my dad’s martial arts school. I started doing tournaments when I was six. Then we evolved into kickboxing and muay thai. Basically, I’ve been involved in every gamut of combat sports, and I guess the rest is just history. I worked my first UFC corner at UFC 26 and since 2005 I’ve been actively cornering guys; Ben Rothwell and Stephan Bonner were some of my original guys.

Speaking of big names, how do you manage all of the egos at Roufusport?

There are no egos, that’s the key. Sure, we’ve got a lot of really decorated guys here; Ben Askren’s joined us, but everyone checks their egos at the door. It’s just a bunch of guys doing work who want to get better.

You mentioned Ben Askren, Bellator’s Welterweight champion. Has he rubbed anyone the wrong way yet?

(Video courtesy of DailyMotion/129PT3)

If you missed the final episode of UFC Primetime: St-Pierre vs. Shields last night, here’s your hook-up.

In this instalment we get to see Jake Shields juggling being father and a fighter.

Of perhaps more interest is that, while training with UFC light heavyweight prospect and former Division I wrestler Phil Davis, Shields did pretty well controlling Mr. Wonderful on the ground. Davis remarked that although he had no problem getting Shields to the ground, he couldn’t hold him there or retain control over the Cesar Gracie black belt — which is something he says he’s never had a problem with before. Sure GSP will probably get Shields down, but the question Saturday night will be what he is able to do when he does.

(209 bros before French-Canadian foes.)

Jake Shields’ coach Cesar Gracie was on Sherdog’s The Savage Dog Show today and one of the topics he touched on was his disagreement with his cousin Renzo Gracie over his decision to help Georges St-Pierre prepare for his upcoming UFC 129 bout with longtime Gracie jiu-jitsu student and black belt Jake Shields this weekend.

According to Cesar, it was wrong for Renzo to help St-Pierre train as he is a relatively new student of the New York-based instructor and he feels that he should be looking out for his committed Gracie family members first and foremost.

“Renzo’s like a brother to me. You gotta understand, we grew up together. We really did. So nothing’s gonna change [between us]. People try to make a big thing about it. I did have a talk with Renzo and I said, “Renzo, you’re training a guy that doesn’t represent your academy, he represents another academy, to fight against a Gracie Academy. It doesn’t make sense to me. It just doesn’t Georges is a great guy.From al accounts, he’s respectful and a decent human being from what I’m understanding. And I said to Renzo, ‘If you had a talk with Georges St-Pierre and said, you’re one of our black belts, you’re going to have to represent us,’” Gracie said. “I think he would do it in a heartbeat.I did have that discussion with him, but I really don’t know what came about with it. People try to make a big thing about it, but I’m an old school guy. I really am. When Georges St-Pierre was training at Renzo’s to fight Matt Serra, who I think was the first black belt Renzo gave out in the U.S… I couldn’t imagine a guy coming in and training with me to beat one of my black belts. I just couldn’t do it. I don’t know exactly what they’re doing over there with that, but it’s just not my way. I’m old school and I’m gonna die old school. That’s just how I am. So I made my feelings known to Renzo about it and I don’t think my guys appreciate it. Frankie Edgar’s there too and he’s a really great kid. He came out to my place and he’s a really hard worker. He came out to train for the BJ Penn fight. I refused to have my guys train with BJ for that fight and they had trained with him for the Florian fight and maybe one fight before that fight when BJ needed help and was trying to get his career back on track. Nick Diaz was training with BJ Penn and there was good sparring. They called us up to train with him for the last Edgar fight and we said no, because he was fighting a kid who represented the Gracie Academy in New York. I’m old school, but now with this fight…It’s not about teaching a guy, because they’re professional athletes and they’re gonna have to fight. They didn’t grow up together or nothing like that. But me being an old school guy, I just look at it like you gotta carry our flag to battle and if you can’t carry our flag to battle, you aren’t training with us. It’s just how I look at it.”

(Man, I can’t wait until Diaz lays into Larry Merchant for being an instigating little bitch.)

Nick Diaz‘s quest to leave MMA for boxing because his life is a living hell has already hit a minor speed-bump. Though Diaz’s trainer/manager Cesar Gracie revealed that they’d already “signed on the dotted line” for a match against veteran pugilist Fernando Vargas, Gracie updated his story yesterday evening, telling MMAJunkie that Vargas is a no-go:

“We were talking about Vargas, but the thing is, I just came under some information that Vargas apparently has some kind of medical issue where he’s not able to pass the test any more, and he could be retiring. Vargas was very interested, but unfortunately, if he can’t pass the test, he can’t pass the test.”

The Gracie camp is now trying to set up a match with Jeff “Left Hook” Lacy, a 33-year-old former IBF super middleweight champion who has lost three out of his last four outings. Meanwhile, boxing promoter Lou DiBella is jockeying for a match between Diaz and Sergio Martinez, the Ring World Middleweight Champion who’s considered one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world. Like Diaz, Martinez has more talent than credible opponents at the moment — but it’s hard to imagine that fight being sanctioned anywhere outside of Poland.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/HDNetFights)

In an interview he did this week with Kenny Rice from HDNet’s Inside MMA, Nick Diaz’s longtime trainer and manager Cesar Gracie says that the next time the scrappy Stockton California fighter competes, it will be in a boxing ring against Fernando Vargas.

“I’d love Vargas to get in there with him. Fernando Vargas. I know they’ve contacted him and he’s very interested. We’ve actually signed on the dotted line for that fight ourselves and we’re waiting on him now,” Diaz revealed in the clip from the interview that aird Friday. “It’s on already. We’ve already signed for it. We’re looking at September or October for something like that. We’re just waiting on their camp now.”

(Diaz insists all negotiations be handled through the proper channels. PicProps: CombatLifestyle.)

Don’t fret homies, Nick Diaz is totally down to fight Jason “Mayhem” Miller in the Strikeforce cage just as soon as that organization actually gets around to offering him the fight. So said Diaz mentor and trainer-to-the-stars (seriously, any stars) Cesar Gracie during an appearance on MMA Junkie Radio this week. One problem: Gracie said Mayhem can’t make welterweight and Diaz damn sure isn’t going all the way up to 185-pounds to fight him, so CEO Scott Coker (or maybe somebody who really wears the pants in Strikeforce) is going to have to figure out a catchweight. Any implication to the contrary is just Miller running his mouth, Gracie said.

"If that fight was offered, yeah, we’d probably take that fight," Gracie said. "We’d just have to look at what weight class it’s going to be in and apparently, Mayhem can’t make 170. We’re not going to accommodate going to 185 … That fight just hasn’t been offered to us in an official manner yet. I know Mayhem goes on his websites and (says) Nick is ducking him and everything.  It’s kind of hard to duck someone when you haven’t even been offered the fight. It’s just Mayhem talking about that. Until it’s been offered, you can’t say yes or no."

(Cain Velasquez and George Lopez enjoy a PBJ and milk in honor of Brock Lesnar’s cracker-ass heritage. Props: fpvault)

– Five Lessons: UFC 121 Edition (Versus MMA Beat)

- Cesar Gracie Says Jake Shields Is the Guy to Beat GSP (FightMagazine)

– Dana White: Brock Lesnar Is Not Going Back to WWE (LowKick)

- Court McGee Not Entirely Pleased With Performance in UFC 121 Win (MMA Fighting)

– The IRS Put a Lien On James Toney’s UFC 118 Fight Purse (MMA Convert)

– Marquardt vs. Okami Winner Guaranteed Title Shot (Heavy.com/MMA)

– Bellator Finalizes Line-Up for Thursday Night’s Season-Ending Event (Five Ounces of Pain)

– Playboy Playmate LaTasha Marzolla Gets Her Arm Snapped in an MMA Bout (MiddleEasy)

– Herb Dean Talks Refereeing and Judging and His New Line of Condoms (MMA Scraps)

– UFC President Dana White Talks Jon Jones, Jose Aldo on the Fight Fix (SBNation.com/MMA)

("I got your conference call for you right here, Coker.")

Apparently Nick Diaz doesn’t like conference calls.

If Strikeforce would have read his "Things I don’t like," rider he sent along to them with his signed contract, they would have realized that "conference calls" were on the list before "Mayhem Miller" and after "children" and they wouldn’t have scheduled him for a media call that he had no intention of participating in. 

So instead of pulling the plug on today’s call completely when they realized Nick wasn’t interested in talking to reporters about his October 9 title defense against KJ Noons, they got the next best guest they could get on short notice for the call: Cesar Gracie. No, seriously, that’s the best they could do.

According to Diaz’s outspoken coach, it "isn’t in Nick’s psyche" to do conference calls with his upcoming opponents, but he didn’t have a problem pretending to know what Nick would say in response to reporters’ questions.

Here’s the transcript of the call, which seemed suspiciously more like a scripted infomercial than a conference call at times. I’m not surprised Nick took one look at his lines and said, "Fuck that; I’m out."

(‘Screw this, baby. Let’s go to IHOP.’)

You’d think Cesar Gracie – head trainer/enabler to Nick and Nate Diaz – would have enough head cases in his life to keep himself busy. Either that’s not true, or else perhaps he’s developed a taste for difficult students, because now he is actively courting Jose Canseco. Silly us, we hoped it was just an empty, impulsive gesture when team members put out a video of them in a diner inviting Canseco to come on down and learn how to fight. But now the Gracie squad says it has reached an agreement to train Canseco for a fight with Herschel Walker “should that matchup happen.”

Hopefully that matchup won’t happen, and as a result Nick Diaz will not have to face a crisis of conscience for helping Canseco in his efforts to demean MMA for his own financial gain.  Why the Gracie team wants anything to do with him is a mystery in itself.  Unless they’re not getting a big enough piece of Diaz’s six-figure payday and are dealing with a dire financial situation, you’d think they’d want to stay away from a guy who has proved so toxic to everything he touches.

(Does this look like a man who considers the consequences and repercussions of his actions?)

Nick Diaz’s chief enabler/manager Cesar Gracie weighed in on the California State Athletic Commission’s recent clarification of their stance on athletes and medical marijuana. If you’ve followed the adventures of Cesar and Nick in past episodes such as “Nick screws over Strikeforce” and “Nick gets pulled from EliteXC event,” it probably won’t surprise you to know that Gracie isn’t responding by insisting that his fighter get clean or find himself new management:

“Just when he gets licensed, he probably shouldn’t smoke,” said Gracie. “That’s my advice to him. If you’re going to fight, don’t smoke. Besides that, there are a lot of states in the country. He could go fight in Japan. He could fight wherever he wants.”

[…]

(Will fight for munchies.)

Eager to get a sane perspective on Nick Diaz’s unapologetic love of weed, MDS over at MMA Fanhouse took the issue up with Cesar Gracie, Nick’s longtime coach and mentor.  Gracie did not disappoint, laying out Diaz’s case in a way we can all understand.

1. It’s technically legal for Nick since he has a prescription for it thanks to his ADD/California’s lax medicinal marijuana laws
2. He still plans to test clean, so screw it anyway
3. It’s probably not something athletes should be doing, but Diaz has great cardio and does freaking triathlons, so it can’t be that bad
4. Michael Phelps does it, and how many gold medals have you won?

If that summary of points isn’t enough for you, leave it to the Brazilian to give your American ass a lesson about personal liberty: