What’s next for Nick Diaz?

This sport can be described as No Country for Old Men, and for the most part it is true. There are outliers of course, take for example the man he fought last night. Robbie Lawler had apparently lost the fire in his eyes, but when given an opportunity to avenge a loss that goes back to 2004 we were once again reminded why he is known as Ruthless.

But Nick Diaz was made old before his time by unfair sentence handed down to him by, the NSAC made him wait and by extension gave him peace. As we all know, without a purpose you lose your oar and become adrift, with no shore in sight. I can only guess, with pieces of Nick’s life shared on Instagram that this is where the sentence took him.

When the old samurai returned to his familiar home, one of the only venues that he understood, he found that that peace had cost him his strength. Nick Diaz is well loved by the fans, one of his lures is his honesty. For someone who hates the limelight and the almost mechanical ceremony of Fight Week, he never gave a cookie cutter answer to anything. If he was afraid, or uncomfortable, or frustrated he would let the wolrd know.

He’ll tell you the truth, and in away Diaz/ Lawler II reflected the ugly truth. Nick Diaz has forgotten more than most of us will ever even learn about this sport. It gave me flashbacks of Evan Tanner’s return to fighting after his two year hiatus. Tanner had been battling demons and did not keep up with his training, when he returned to competition the theory was there. Tanner had a masterful understanding of the game, but the psychical abuse his body had taken from alcohol was evident.

There’s an old saying “where the mind goes the body follows” and that can be true for a lot of sports, but not MMA if there is not a good baseline. Maybe it was the time off, the toll of partying, or the lack of interest (he was confused about how the Lawler rematch even came to be).

We saw the boxing knowledge and the classic Diaz output, but we did not see the dog. He spoke of teaching young up and comers, it is a great profession to do but it requires a degree of civility that might be counterproductive for a fight.

When Robbie found that sweet spot on the bridge of the nose Diaz had seen enough. He has weathered worse storms back in the day, but without a reason to wade into the fire Diaz called it a day. To borrow a quote from Nietzsche “A man who has a why can bare almost any how.” Maybe his why is in teaching, maybe it still in fighting for the belt which is why all he requests is title fights.

What’s are Nick Diaz’s options?

It seems that old guard would be the best option for Diaz, I was going to suggest Carlos Condit but he recently retired.

I’d say Donald Cerrone is the first matchup that really jumps out, as both are legends. Cerrone is a man with many feathers in his cap but has only fought one Diaz brother so far. A perfect fight for both, with the Samurai and Cowboy riding off into the sunset together.

Matt Brown is another one, a scrappy fighter that is a veteran like Diaz. It could be a barnburner for sure, Brown is riding a two fight win streak at the moment but might sign on the line to fight a legend.

I just think at this rate, the UFC won’t catapult Diaz into a title fight with Kamaru Usman. He can still mix it in with the fighters of his generation and find success. It would have been nice to get that Hollywood blockbuster return, but the fight game keeps it real.