Cesar Gracie has known Nick Diaz for 12 years and has stuck by him in good times and in bad.
But when it comes to the UFC's decision to boot him from a fight with welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre at UFC 137, right is right, and wrong is wrong.
"I don't blame Dana White on this at all," Gracie today told MMAjunkie.com (
www.mmajunkie.com). "This is a professional company, and Nick is a 28-year-old man."
Diaz no-showed a press conference today in Las Vegas promoting UFC 137. It's the second time he had done so in two days. A press conference Tuesday in Toronto saw St-Pierre pull double duty in promoting the fight and answering questions from the media when Diaz no-showed.
In Diaz's place goes Carlos Condit, who vacates a fight with B.J. Penn in UFC 137's co-main event.
UFC 137 takes place Oct. 29 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, and its main card, including the St-Pierre (22-2 MMA, 16-2 UFC) vs. Condit (27-5 MMA, 4-1 UFC) fight, airs live on pay-per-view.
White did not say whether Diaz (25-7 MMA, 6-4 UFC) has been released from the UFC, but Gracie said it wouldn't surprise him if that were the case. Shortly after he spoke to MMAjunkie.com, Gracie directly phoned the UFC president to apologize.
"I've stuck up for Nick, even when he was wrong before," Gracie said. "But he's let a lot of people down. He's let his team down. We all bought plane tickets to Vegas. We got hotel rooms booked, paid for. We've got all that, and Nick just decided not to go to something he's supposed to. They're paying him a lot of money, and in this economy where people don't have money, he's blessed. He should be thanking God every night how blessed he is.
"And instead, he's not getting on a plane to go to Vegas. I'm extremely disappointed. He's done a lot of stuff, but this is the worst of it. If I were him, I would be begging Dana White to get my job back and work your way up to a title shot at some point."
For the record, Gracie said he tried to get Diaz to the press conferences and on Monday left his son's birthday party to chauffeur the fighter to the airport for the gathering in Toronto. Diaz, however, left the gym before he could do so.
Gracie volunteered to go on the plane with Diaz, but Diaz said he wanted to go by himself.
"I'm not a psychologist," he said. "I personally think there's some kind of social anxiety happening here with Nick. Dana said, 'You've got to play the game this much.' And this isn't even playing the game. This is about being a man and being responsible. And Nick has done neither in this situation.
"He's a great jiu-jitsu guy. He's a great fighter. I'm saying this because I care deeply about the guy. He's one of my black belts. But in this situation, he is 100 percent wrong, and he got what he deserved."
Gracie is unclear on whether his relationship with Diaz will hold through the storm.
"At this point, I don't know what I'm going to do with Nick because he's not only disrespected the sport, he's disrespected me and himself," he said.
Gracie said he'll understand if the UFC cuts Diaz but hasn't heard either way.
"There's a lot of people in this world that work hard and show up to work, and they're grateful to have the job," he said. "And Nick is obviously one of those.
"I've barely slept in the last couple of days, and it's sickened me. Here's the opportunity that I've worked for for over 10 years, to mold a guy to become the best possible guy, and to show he can be the best guy in the world. And he takes this opportunity and he acts like an immature child about it.
"It's disturbing, to say the least. He got what he deserved by not taking this fight. He told everybody he would do whatever it would take to do it, he lobbied for it, and he acts like this. Dana White is 100 percent correct in what he did."
Source: Nick Diaz trainer Cesar Gracie on UFC 137 removal: "He got what he deserved"
