The promoter who was going to throw the Nick Diaz / Jeff Lacy boxing match has just publicized a press release that puts the kaibosh on Nick leaving for boxing:
Don Chargin states, "Nick is a good kid and a very exciting fighter. Right now he has an opportunity of a lifetime as it pertains to his MMA career. While I don't doubt that Nick and his team were serious about taking the big step into boxing, it only makes sense for him to finish what he started and see how far he can go in MMA before he does anything in boxing. It's all about timing... we began these discussions over two years ago and nobody would have imagined the type of demand that there currently is for Nick as a mixed martial artist."
Cesar Gracie (Nick's manager) states, "There are some people that have said we were just posturing to go into professional boxing and they don't understand that this thing is something we had been working on since 2009. It wasn't just out of nowhere but at this point in time, there's a certain chance that comes along once in a very long while and it only makes sense to stick to MMA as of right now. Nick's been working really hard to get to this point in his MMA career and it wouldn't make sense for us to make that transition into boxing right now. If this were a couple months ago or if certain fights had played out differently, we'd definitely be ready to go into boxing, but that's not how it played out. Don Chargin is a great boxing promoter and he understood our dilemma completely and I thank him for that."
Opportunity of a lifetime, huh? I wonder if that means sticking around in Strikeforce to fight Tyron Woodley? Ah, who are we shitting. This is as close to Diaz vs GSP being locked up as you can get without the words coming out of Dana White's mouth. As for what is coming out of Dana's mouth:
"We will see," White told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "There are still a lot of hurdles."
Those hurdles probably involve sorting out the Strikeforce / Showtime stuff. It was all so simple when things were Business As Usual?, but what will happen now that the UFC is trying to pluck one of Showtime's star fighters off the roster? The solution will undoubtedly involve money ... the only question being if Showtime will get six or seven figures out of things. If I was a Showtime exec, I'd be asking for some sort of PPV split. I'd also punch myself in the crotch several times for that Mayhem Miller bullshit.
(pic by Esther Lin)
Source: http://www.fightlinker.com/all-signs-point-to-gsp-diaz
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