Nick Diaz Fight Might Be Off Due To Drug Test

Fozzy

http://www.f4wonline.com/content/view/10198/

Diaz fight may be off

by Bryan Alvarez

The Nick Diaz vs Jay Heiron fight scheduled for the Aug 15 Strikeforce show in San Jose may be off pending results of a drug test. Diaz is scheduled to take the test Monday.

Diaz was scheduled to take a pre-fight drug test tonight in order to get licensed and no showed. Caesar Gracie stated Wednesday that Diaz would appear for the test tonight in Sacramento. Neither Diaz nor Caesar showed up for the test and representatives for Diaz said Diaz was "busy training".

Because of the time required to get test results back, CSAC believes the test would have had to be taken tonight. Strikeforce was contacted and promised Diaz would appear for the test Monday. CSAC has agreed to this new date but has stated there is a good chance test results will not be back in time to license him for the show.

The obvious conclusion would seem to be that he doesn't think that he'd pass it. Hopefully that's not the case because I like his fights

rovert

Grade A excuse there.

He failed in 2007 for for marijuana.

I thought he had prescription or something for the weed.

rovert

Deleted User wrote: »

I thought he had prescription or something for the weed.

He does/did, the issue in 2007 is that he did not disclose that he had
prescription before taking the test.

From the CSAC FAQ:

Q. Can I compete if I am using prescription medication?
A. For health and safety reasons, the Commission may deny a license or delay the issuing of a license refuse a licensee to compete if he or she is using medication that may enhance or diminish performance, or medication deemed detrimental to his or her health and safety.

If you are on any type of prescription medication, including medicinal marijuana, you must disclose this at the time of licensing and/or as early in the bout approval process as possible. The Commission will require you to submit ALL pertinent medical information regarding the prescription medication for submission to a Commission physician for review. The review and approval process takes time; therefore, this information must be disclosed immediately in the event planning process.

DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE WEEK OF THE FIGHT OR THE WEIGH IN TO DISCLOSE THIS INFORMATION. DOING SO MAY CAUSE THE COMMISSION TO CANCEL YOUR FIGHT.

If you do not disclose that you are taking a prescribed medication prior to the fight and your drug test is positive, you will be suspended, fined, and/or may be required to appear in front of the Commission. You may also be subject to other disciplinary action including denial or revocation of your license."

So I guess IF he is avoiding the test for the reason that he thinks he would fail it isn’t pot OR his prescription has expired and is waiting for a doctor to write a new one. Pure speculation on my part here.

dunkamania

Even with a prescription, he might not get licensed.

Same for ADD fighters on ritalin or similar treatments. You have a legitamte reason for taking the substance, but its banned and gives you an edge over your opponent, although I personally dont see weed as beneficial to a fighter

calex71

Strikeforce just cant catch a break with this card can they , thats the 4th time the main card as been changed if Diaz is out.

In related news, seems they have an agreement with Dream to share fighters, hopefully works out better than the ''agreement" between Pride and UFC back then.

rovert

calex71 wrote: »

Strikeforce just cant catch a break with this card can they , thats the 4th time the main card as been changed if Diaz is out.

In related news, seems they have an agreement with Dream to share fighters, hopefully works out better than the ''agreement" between Pride and UFC back then.

Also Dana is hinting about making up with Frank Shamrock who has been the cornerstone of Strikeforce:
http://mmajunkie.com/news/15774/dana-white-isnt-ruling-out-frank-shamrock-returning-to-the-ufc.mma

JohnMc1

Deleted User wrote: »

I thought he had prescription or something for the weed.

Marijuana use is only legal in California. It is still Illegal according to Federal Law.

I agree with Fozzy he most likely no-showed because he thought he wouldn't pass.

JohnMc1

The saga continues:

CSAC Bill Douglas wrote:

When we initially made contact with the Diaz camp in regards to acquiring the pre-fight drug testing he was allegedly training in Florida with American Top Team and not available to be in California. No problem. We were trying to be accommodating.

“We knew he was scheduled to be a special guest at a boxing/kickboxing event that was taking place this past Friday evening. So we contacted Cesar Gracie on Wednesday to make the arrangements and let them know that we’ve been trying to arrange this drug test for some time. You know, we were like, ‘Let’s make this happen sooner than later because we want to make sure that we get the test results back in time. Technically we would have to get the test done by Friday to insure that we have enough time to get a drug test processed, it doesn’t take as long as a steroid test. So let’s do this’.

“Well they wanted a clarification on a legal opinion about medicinal marijuana in California because of the deal that was allegedly made between Nick Diaz and Armando Garcia. And I’m sitting here thinking, well Armando hasn’t been here since November. Is that really the policies of a person that we want to emulate at this point in time. So lets disregard that but Cesar asked for a legal opinion and at that point I’m obligated to give it to him. I went back to the department’s legal team, and what they clarified was that the passionate use act in California will protect people from criminal prosecution for the use of medicinal marijuana, but it does not protect them from administrative action against a license. So there is no criminal actions here against Mr. Diaz, it’s a licensing action that still falls in line with our rule 303 prohibiting use of a banned substance, and at this time in regards to athletic competition marijuana is still considered banned. So that’s what we came back to Cesar with.

“On Thursday we actually made arrangements again with Cesar. I set it up on this end for an athletic inspector who was going to be in Sacramento to wait for them and greet them. Cesar made contact with the athletic inspector and agreed that it would be best to do the drug test prior to the Friday evening boxing/kickboxing event, because of the fact that Nick was going to be there anyway. Cesar wanted to do it before anyone got there, we said no problem. We confirmed it with Cesar on behalf of Nick and this inspector. On Friday evening I get a phone call from the inspector saying they no-showed. There’s no Nick Diaz, there’s no Cesar Gracie, there’s nobody. When I reached out to Nick through phone call I was informed that Nick was busy training at Donner Lake. And I’m sitting here thinking that there’s a huge problem because to get to Donner Lake you have to go through Sacramento. So what’s the deal.

“Now Nick Diaz is completely unavailable, so I call the promoter and tell him we have a huge problem. I told him that I was out of options and didn’t know what to do. At this point, without his license, we can’t approve him to fight Jay Hieron. So this is fairly late in the evening on Friday night, about 9 or 10 pm on Friday night. I was on the phone at all hours dealing with this on Friday night, and the promoter said , “How about this as an option? How about we make sure that Nick is in Los Angeles on Monday. That way at least he’s there and we can drive him over to the lab”. I said, ‘You know what. In interest in fairness to Nick, interest of fairness to you and all of the fans that have wanted to see this fight; let’s do that. I’m all for second chances, let’s do whatever we can to get this man licensed. This is the only possible way we could get the test results on Friday. I even went as far as to say that I wouldn’t give a cut off time for the test results. I will take the test results up until seconds before Nick Diaz has to get on the scale. Seriously, I want to get this man licensed. The promoter said, “Excellent, thanks for this opportunity. We appreciate it. He’ll be there.”, and that was the last time we’ve heard from anybody. At least if we could get the test done by 2 pm this afternoon and get it to the lab by 5 pm, we’ll be alright.

“I attempted to contact the promoters of the event on Saturday night as far as what needed to be done, and again at midnight. The inspector has also made attempts to contact them on Saturday night, Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and again this morning, and neither one of us has heard anything from either the promoter or the Diaz camp. I’m sitting here thinking that we’ve done everything we can to try to get ahold of them and if we can’t get a simple phone call back, or some kind of fax, or an email, just one line, something; If they can’t meet us halfway on that, then it’s doomed.”

I wouldn't be surprised if this fight is cancelled now. I hope the Diaz fanboys won't be running around yelling how corrupt the CSAC is. The CSAC looks like they really went out of their way to accomodate Diaz but Diaz and even Ceaser Gracie blew them off.

rovert

Listening to the Strikeforce conference call:
http://mmajunkie.com/misc/radio.mma

Fozzy

The last I read of it from Dave Meltzer was that the commission has officially approved Jesse Taylor vs Jay Hieron, so Diaz isn't fighting

It's plainly obvious that he knew that he'd fail for marijuana. It's completely his own fault, and he shouldn't have been counting on some arrangement that he had with someone who doesn't work with the commission anymore and someone who the commission have tried to distance themselves from somewhat. He's going to have to comment on it sometime, so he really should have responded to the commission one of the many times that they tried to contact him

calex71

Hate to say it I really do as I like his style a lot . but it really shows him up for the ****** he is

Swizz

Mod edit- Figther abuse, read the charter!

SuperWoody101

Jesse Taylor will now fight Jay Hieron at this event, that should be a great fight.

ginoginelli

SuperWoody101 wrote: »

Jesse Taylor will now fight Jay Hieron at this event, that should be a great fight.

u reckon?

This event has gone to sh*t. The diaz fight was the one I was most looking forward too. Im only midly interested in the babalou v mogassi and gina v cyborg fights. Gina fight is defintetly not main event worthy imo.

SuperWoody101

ginoginelli wrote: »

u reckon?

This event has gone to sh*t. The diaz fight was the one I was most looking forward too. Im only midly interested in the babalou v mogassi and gina v cyborg fights. Gina fight is defintetly not main event worthy imo.

I think the Hieron/Taylor fight coud be great, I don't think the card is that bad.

dunkamania

I think Babalu vs Mousassi could be a great fight.

Joe Silva claims he got a call from Moussasi after he had signed with Strikeforce, to ask if it was true that the UFC were only offering 40k/40k as his managment were telling him. Joe Silva said no, they were willing to honour the 120k/120k contract that he had at Affliction. :mad:

calex71

I'm really looking forward to Babalu vs Mousassi.

I've seen several Strikeforce cards that looked like poo on paper but turned out to be cracking events. And on more than one occasion the ladies fights being the best of the bunch.

rovert

Gina/Cyborg could have SO much bigger than how things stand right now. A lot of people at one stage thought it could been a bigger mainstream wise than Brock/Mir.

Fozzy

rovert wrote: »

Gina/Cyborg could have SO much bigger than how things stand right now. A lot of people at one stage thought it could been a bigger mainstream wise than Brock/Mir.

It would have been seen by a hell of a lot more people if it had been on CBS anyway. As it is it'll probably get less viewers than the WEC show at the weekend

ginoginelli

Strikeforce certainly have done a poor job on promoting the gina/cyborg fight. Maybe they should have insisted they both have one fight each before they fought each other to hype it up a bit. A 24/7 type show could have been a useful promtional tool as well.

Fozzy

dunkamania wrote: »

I think Babalu vs Mousassi could be a great fight.

Joe Silva claims he got a call from Moussasi after he had signed with Strikeforce, to ask if it was true that the UFC were only offering 40k/40k as his managment were telling him. Joe Silva said no, they were willing to honour the 120k/120k contract that he had at Affliction. :mad:

Yesterday's Wrestling Observer says that Mousasi called up Silva asking about the $40k/$40k offer and Silva said that they never offered anything, but if they did then it would have been the same as his Affliction contract, which was $125k guaranteed with a win bonus believed to be $25k. Mousasi's manager said that he learned of the $40k offer from a UFC "source", but Silva said that only him, Dana and Lorenzo can offer contracts and none of them had said anything about $40k to anyone. The problem was that Mousasi had signed a Strikeforce contract before ever talking to the UFC

ginoginelli wrote: »

Strikeforce certainly have done a poor job on promoting the gina/cyborg fight. Maybe they should have insisted they both have one fight each before they fought each other to hype it up a bit. A 24/7 type show could have been a useful promtional tool as well.

They already did give Cyborg a fight to build up this one. After Cyborg's first EXC fight people were talking about her fighting Gina. Even more after her second one. And then Strikeforce gave her a fight with Gina at the show. The danger with giving Gina another fight is that she might either lose or win unimpressively, and then this match would mean a lot less. Although again, with how it is now, it doesn't mean much anyway. But there was the potential for it being on CBS or PPV back then

How much could a 24/7 show really help? Not that many people watch Showtime. Strikeforce's last show did around 275,000 viewers. Compare that to the five million or so who watched Gina's last fight. They'll probably beat the 300,000 mark by a bit, but no matter how great a build up show they were to do it wouldn't be raising the audience that much

rovert

Im surprised no one has tied the fight to Women's boxing becoming an Olympic Sport this week in a news story or press release.

Fromvert

Diaz is going to try his hand at boxing.

http://www.bjpenn.com/profiles/blogs/nick-diaz-signs-pro-boxing

I don't think this is a good idea.

rovert

Sherk seems have done a Diaz:

Word of the injury got out on the evening of 9/2, a few hours after he was scheduled to take a random drug test by the California State Athletic Commission. He didn’t get on the flight to California and when he no-showed, UFC informed the commission that Sherk was injured and was off the card.

Credit: Wrestling Observer Newsletter

Fozzy

rovert wrote: »

Sherk seems have done a Diaz:



Credit: Wrestling Observer Newsletter

Very convenient injury alright, no notification of it until after the scheduled drug test