While the exact reason for Nick Diaz’s
withdrawal from UFC 310
is unclear, there has been speculation that the popular fighter
isn’t in a good place in his life right now.
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That stems primarily from a video that recently appeared on social media, where a
shirtless Diaz appears to be attempting to light grass on fire. At
the time, Diaz was booked to face Vicente
Luque at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas at UFC 310. It wasn’t
much later that Themba
Gorimbo was announced as Diaz’s replacement in the welterweight
bout.
Jason
Miller is quite familiar with struggles outside the cage. The
fighter known as “Mayhem” has run afoul of the law on numerous
occasions, most recently in August 2023
for allegedly choking a fan. Shortly after that incident,
Miller released a statement on Instagram addressing his troubles
and how for a long time, it was difficult to ask anyone for
help.
Miller seems to be doing better now, and he can empathize with a
fellow fighter — even one who was previously a rival — who might be
going through some issues of his own. In a recent interview with
Helen Yee Sports (h/t MMAFighting.com), Miller offered to help Diaz
himself if needed — while urging those in the fighter’s inner
circle to step up.
“Listen here, we all saw what we saw and I won’t dwell on it too
bad,” Miller said. “I think people in Nick’s life need to gather
around. Anybody who ever made some money off him needs to come
circle around and help this guy out. We had our beef, whatever,
since we were kids, but that doesn’t stop me from extending a
helping hand to this guy if he needs it. And if he’s not ready to
take a helping hand, you all need to keep on him. The people close
to him, his brother, his family, his friends, all you guys that
made money off him, he needs you now. He needs a circle back.
“That’s not talking bad on him, it’s a tough sport we’re in and
it’s easy to get tripped up in the wrong things. Super easy. And
it’s even harder to come up out of that, so my advice is not for
him, it’s for the people around him to help him get to a better
place in his life.”
A former Strikeforce champion and title contender in the UFC, Diaz
returned from a hiatus of more than six years in September 2021,
when he suffered a third-round TKO loss to Robbie
Lawler at UFC 266. He was initially scheduled to face Luque at
UFC Abu Dhabi in August before the bout was canceled. Ahead of that
proposed booking, longtime coach Cesar
Gracie revealed that he
hadn’t been part of Diaz’s camp.
“And so I don’t know what Nick is doing. I know he’s lost a lot of
weight and everything, but I don’t really see him training with
fighters. And I don’t know what’s going on with that fight,” Gracie
said in June.
Months later, it’s all but certain that Diaz won’t be fighting at
all in 2024. Miller points out that being away from fighting for
long periods can be difficult with nothing to replace that feeling.
For “Mayhem,” his life got better when he sought help, and he
thinks that Diaz could be in a similar position.
“S—t, I wish somebody would have done it for me earlier. They did
and I finally took the help and now my life keeps getting better
and better… I went through all this hard stuff with substances.
It’s super easy to get tripped up in, it’s so easy, especially when
you’re used to the bright lights and crazy, exciting—the fight is
like nothing else,” he said.
“… There’s something in you that once you have this super exciting
thing in your life, and if you’re not doing it all the time, then
it’s easy to slip into something that gives you that feeling really
quickly and I don’t think that we should judge people for that. I
think that we should help them up out of that when we can.”