An in depth interview with Nick Diaz.
Courtesy of ThaFormula.com
World's Best Source For That Ol' Boom Bap
-March 2007
thaFormula.com - How did your connection start with Ceasar Gracie?
Nick Diaz - I went to Tokay high school in Lodi and a friend of mine was always talking about how his older brother did Jiu Jitsu and trained with like a Lions Den or Shamrock or something like that in Lodi. So when I was like 16, I stopped by there to lift some weights and then I found out that they were doing choke holds and **** like that in there, so I went in there and started learning how to choke people and learning Jiu Jitsu and stuff like that from a guy named Steve Heath, because he trained Jiu Jitsu under Ceasar Gracie and he was a blue belt and its real hard to get a blue belt under Ceasar Gracie. Everybody that's a blue belt is really, really good. It's like you might as well be a black belt almost in other schools if your a blue belt under Ceasar Gracie. So I learned alot from this guy and he took me right up there to meet Ceasar right away, because I choked most of the guys that he had trained and taught because he had his own group of guys there that he was working out with, cause he was gonna go fight Chuck Lidell. So I helped him to go train to fight Chuck Lidell when I was real young , like 16 and he had a group of guys and I would beat all those guys so he brought me up to meet Ceasar right away and then Ceasar started putting me in fights when I was like 16 or 17.
thaFormula.com - So was Jiu Jitsu something you felt was natural to you?
Nick Diaz - As far as Jiu Jitsu, yeah I think it was and I think that's why I took that Jiu Jitsu path instead of that like Lions Den type of way that everybody else was going towards. There was alot of body builders in the sport right when I started. Alot of like athletic people from like wrestling coaches and wrestlers and I moreso wanted to learn Jiu Jitsu and I was into boxing. So it was a little bit different for me. So I was choking alot of these guys and stuff like that and uh we had Jens Pulver training with us too. For like my first 3 or 4 months of training, I trained with Jens Pulver. Him and Steve Heath and that was before he went to the Militech team, and so he went to the Militech team and I went to the Gracie academy and started learning Jiu Jitsu.
thaFormula.com - How was Pulver back then when you started to train with him?
Nick Diaz - Well, I would train with him and I would roll with him and I had never done anything, and he had already been fighting in the UFC so he taught me alot about boxing, because he was a more experienced boxer, so he taught me alot about boxing right away and how to wrap my hands with long hand wrap and he had good boxing fundamentals, which is really surprising because alot of people in MMA had never had any boxing experience, but apparently he was pretty good I suppose because he had this boxing experience that he had gone through and he was a pretty established wrestler to, so he would get in there and box guys and sprawl and beat em up and knock em out and take them down and pound on them. He had some good wrestling, but he got me going really well on my boxing. He got me jabbing and moving really well to my right. Actually I started out sparring conventional, he got me jabbing with my left and circling to the left and it got me moving really well circling around the guy and throwing a jab and moving and stepping out of the way of the right hand. Another good thing is I was right around the area from some good pro boxers and Ceasar Gracie took me to the boxing gym. The difference between me and alot of MMA fighters is I went to the boxing gym and I trained boxing. I'm a pro boxer too and I have had some pro boxing bouts and I have trained with alot of pro boxers. I would actually have alot more pro boxing bouts if I had the time and if they paid as much money as I'm getting paid for MMA right now, but fortunately I'm getting paid alot in MMA and I know who I'm going up against alot of times and what I'm dealing with.
thaFormula.com - Now you started your career with 4 victories in a row which I'm sure felt great at the time. In your 5th match you fought Jeremy Jackson. Did you know the type of fighter you were going up against when you stepped in the octagon with him and were you prepared for him?
Nick Diaz - No I wasn't. The reason why I took Jeremy Jackson so lightly was because I have a training partner named Jake Shields and Jake Shields had finished the same opponent earlier in another organization. He fought Jeremy and it was a easy fight for him. They took him really, really, lightly because he had no wrestling credentials and Jake is a wrestler, so he's dealing with the wrestling game and they are only worried about wrestlers. So they took him lightly because they knew it was just a double leg and then a mount and then a finish. So I go in there to fight this guy and he had some good boxing skills. I'm about 17 or 18 years old in this show. This guy he has some good boxing skills and some serious good boxing fundamentals and a serious idea of what to do with these fighters he was dealing with and he also had a good look at me before this show, and its not so much that I didn't do my homework, but there wasn't youtube back then like there is now and you couldn't just look up who you are fighting. So I didn't know who I was fighting and I come out there to fight this guy, I didn't come out there to double leg him and hold him down the whole fight. So he popped me with a stiff jab and dropped me in the first round and then I got back up, then I get dropped with another one and then I got back up and after that you know I took quite a few punches on the ground. I still wasn't out but I wasn't there you know. I was just taking punches and they stop the fight on me. As far as I'm concerned, that's my only loss that I have had to deal with and I feel like I lost. The rest of the fights, I'm like whatever you know. They know they lost and I don't feel like I lost and I know they don't wanna fight me again. I'm trying to get a rematch with everybody I lost too and that's the last thing I'm sure they wanna do.
thaFormula.com - So looking back at that Jeremy Jackson fight, do you look at that fight as you just being really inexperienced at the time?
Nick Diaz - Absolutely because everybody else told me to take him down and I said, yeah whatever. I didn't know what I was dealing with. I fought him twice after that and of course I wasn't trying to have a standup war with him once I knew what his weakness was, and how he didn't have any grappling coaches or any good Jiu Jitsu around him, so it was gonna be real easy to take him down and finish him and do the job like that, so there wasn't no need to box him. But I got to box and spar with Jeremy later and you know I got alot better with my boxing. I feel like I do alot better then Jeremy boxing and alot better then most do boxing in MMA and if I wasn't fighting MMA I think by now I would be fighting pro boxing, regardless of whether I would be making a good living or not.
thaFormula.com - The first time I saw you fight was when you fought lions Den fighter Joe Hurley at WEC 6. Do you think that victory was the fight that really put you on the radar seeing that Hurley was a big favorite and an up and coming fighter?
Nick Diaz - Well you know it was a big show and people I'm sure wanted to see Frank Shamrock, so yeah probably because it had a few stars there and I won a belt that day. So yeah it was a really good show for me. Joe Hurley is a really underrated fighter by the way. My brother fought him too and this guy just cant catch a break. The Lions Den just kind of fell behind after a while and they didn't come from a strong background and that's what happens. This is a team sport believe it or not and these guys I'm sure really didn't care about each other and they didn't have a strong team. At one point in time this Lions Den was good but then they would move it to San Diego and here and there and see that doesn't really work out like that. Then their is Joe Hurley, who is a good fighter. He deserves to fight somewhere like Pride for instance. When I started fighting, I went to go watch Joe Hurley fight, Joe Hurley knocked some guy out and everybody is screaming, "Hurley, Hurley, Hurley." This guy is crazy you know. Big pale eyed, pale faced bigheaded dude with this Shamrock tattoo on the side of his arm and I was like 18 at the time and this guy was seriously like a scary fighter. I didn't know I was gonna end up fighting him a year later. If someone had told me I would have probably been ****ting bricks. As far as I knew he was unstoppable, and then now he just falls off because the sport grows real quick and no one is helping this guy out. If he trained with us, this guy would be huge.