Nick Diaz has hit out at Georges St-Pierre for not doing anything to try and ensure their scheduled fight at UFC 137 went ahead as planned.
The pair were scheduled to go head-to-head in an eagerly-anticipated welterweight title fight in Las Vegas on October 29, before Diaz invoked the ire of UFC president Dana White for skipping a number of mandatory pre-fight press conferences.
The former Strikeforce champion was subsequently removed from the main event fight due to his absences - to be replaced by Carlos Condit - before eventually being restored to the undercard in another intriguing fight against BJ Penn.
St-Pierre criticised Diaz's character in a press conference to announce the change to the lineup, but Diaz believes the Canadian could have made sure the fight still went ahead - but chose not to because he was scared of being beaten.
"I really don't appreciate this mother****** sitting there at that press conference and laughing at me," Diaz told MMAjunkie.com. "That's some real bitch ****. He's sitting there laughing like it's funny or something. If I saw Georges on the street and called him a bitch, I bet you he wouldn't do [expletive]. But you can't do that to me. That's not how it works for me. That's something to fight about.
"It makes me mad that Georges is going to sit there and call himself a fighter, but he's not going to stand up and say something about this. He's going to let it ride. I think I would say something. I would at least have said, 'I disagree. I don't agree with cancelling my fight because of some dumbass ****.' Instead, he sat there and said, 'He doesn't have the commitment to be a champion.' What is that?
"I obviously have the commitment to throw my life away. I've thrown my life away and sacrificed everything so that I can fight. I did that. I threw my life away so I could work hard and train and fight. That's commitment."
White has suggested that Diaz was unable to deal with the media pressures that come with being part of a main event fight, but the man himself claims that he was simply unaware of the importance of the conferences he missed - claiming he thought they were pre-fight video shoots that would only interfere with his training.
"I'm not trying to make all these little excuses," Diaz said. "If I'd have known the fight was going to be off, I would have gone to the press conference. I think that people would have gotten me there. I think people would have come ... and gotten me to that press conference.
"I didn't even know there was a press conference. I thought it was some PR thing."
While fans are still eagerly awaiting the two fights they have been left with at UFC 137, Diaz has his concerns about whether the good relationships that exist between the four opponents will really lead to exciting contests.
"Now I'm over here getting ready to fight a guy I know that I was previously friends with," Diaz said. "We're not doing so good right now, but we were friends. Condit and Georges, they know each other. They're friends.
"They're trying to make these fights out of people that aren't even trying to fight. They're trying to make these wrestling matches, and I think it's kind of ridiculous. It's not a real fight."
Source:
http://www.espn.co.uk/ufc/sport/story/111196.html
