#2 – The Nick Diaz Fiasco, Part 1

It’s downright shocking that someone who smokes as much pot as Nick Diaz does can simultaneously be as aggressive and confrontational as Nick Diaz is at every waking moment (Author’s note: Unless you’re Marc Ratner of course, in which case you probably saw this coming). If Sir-Smoke-A-Lot strapped on four ounce gloves and a permanent mean mug, he would be Nick Diaz. So it should have come as little surprise to anyone other than the masterminds behind EliteXC that allowing Diaz to be in the same ring as any other fighter — let alone the last man to defeat him in K.J. Noons — would quickly disintegrate into a clusterfuck of epic proportions. Yet they did it anyway.

It all went down at EliteXC: Return of the King. Noons had just defended the belt he beat out Diaz for by trouncing Yves Edwards. Diaz had shown up 9 pounds heavy and scored a plodding UD win over Mushin Corbbrey. Clearly these two were meant to square off next, so EliteXC wrangled Bill Goldberg into the mix to…moderate, I guess, by yelling into the microphone as loud as humanely possible. Despite Noons’ calm demeanor, Diaz would still act as if he had been called a bitch and gave birth to one of the greatest catchphrases in MMA history before erupting into an all out brawl with the Noons clan. Thankfully, Hawaii’s army of Tela Tuli’s were on hand to break things up before it got too serious.

If only the same could be said for our final entry…

#1 – The Nick Diaz Fiasco, Part 2 (a.k.a The Strikeforce Brawl)

At this point in his post-fight brawling career, Nick Diaz was in danger of facing what is known in the music industry as the Sophomore slump. Sure, his first post-fight confrontation was pretty legendary by post-fight confrontation standards, but could he pull it off again? It was a question that nearly tens of thousands of nobody was asking, but boy oh boy would Diaz silence those of us who were questioning just how much of a loose cannon he truly was with this one.

Now, the infamous Strikeforce: Nashville brawl can be easily attributed to Jason Miller‘s insistence on Kanye-Westing Jake Shields in the immediate aftermath of his come-from-behind win over Dan Henderson, but we’re not sure how his playful pleading for a rematch was considered immediate grounds for a Team Cesar Gracie gang stomping. Diaz and several other members of Team Gracie were fined for their participation in the brawl, and Miller received a 3 month suspension on top of his fines. It was an unmitigated disaster for everyone involved, but hey, it was also responsible for another one of the greatest catchphrases in MMA history, so all’s well that ends well, right guys?

Honorable Mentions: The Pride 31 Hammer House/Chute Box brawl and the Renzo Gracie/Nate Marquardt face kicking incident. Both we’re equally, if not more memorable than a couple of the entries on this list, but because they weren’t the result of a staged confrontation, we had to exclude them.

So, Potato Nation, will the Silva/St. Pierre staredown wind up in the vein of Diaz/Noons, or will St. Pierre opt to repeat “Not empressed” until we are all blue in the face?

-J. Jones

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