Diaz engage in phone battle
TORONTO Before stripping down to fight in a cage, how about slugging it out over the phone?
That's what UFC welterweight champion Georges St Pierre and challenger Nick Diaz did Thursday, clashing on a media conference call ahead of their main event matchup at UFC 158 in Montreal on March 16.
It was an entertaining if sometimes confusing war of words as the stylish champion from Montreal jousted with the snarly California fighter with a giant sized chip on his shoulder.
"I don't understand half of the words that you're saying," St Pierre said during the height of the debate. "I speak English better than you, man. Talk to me like a normal human being."
Replied Diaz: "You're talking (crap) and you're out of line, bro. Straight up. You understand that, right?"
It started with Diaz lamenting the lack of respect he gets, in part due to the way the UFC is promoting this fight.
"I like to be known as someone who kept it real," he said. "I just don't like that I'm made out to be this evil person that needs to be shot down if anything I'm like the super hero coming in with the anti bull."
He told the story of being at a stop light on home turf in Lodi, Calif., when "some soccer mom sticks her head out the window and she's like "I hope GSP beats your ass.'"
"I'm living in a small town full of people that hate me," he added.
The 31 year old St Pierre (23 2) is anything but a trash talker. But the UFC has built this fight up as the champion looking to teach some respect to the brash challenger.
Diaz's initial ire seemed to come from the UFC's video promotion, which shows UFC president Dana White speaking for St Pierre in October 2011 when Diaz and GSP were originally slated to fight. Penn at UFC 137, Diaz accused the injured St Pierre of ducking him. St Pierre was in the stands watching.
"GSP flipped out tonight," White is seen telling the news conference that followed. "He said that 'Nick is the most disrespectful human being I've ever met and I'm going to put the worst beating you've ever seen on him in Air Jordan 2013 the UFC.'"
In another UFC buy Air Jordan 158 promo, the champion says Diaz had made him reach into a "dark place."
Adds GSP: "Nick Diaz deserves to be beat down."
Said Diaz: "I'm not a disrespectful human being. I don't deserve to be beat down."
If he was making waves, he said he was because he wasn't getting the attention he deserved.
"I'm coming here to whup this guy's ass and nobody knows who I am. I guess everybody does but as far as like your mainstream magazines and your Nike, Adidas and all your good stuff, I'm left out of that," he said.
Diaz also complained that if GSP calls him disrespectful, people believe it.
"When you say something, everyone believes it, dude," he said. "Everybody wants to know what Georges thinks, what Georges says."
The conference call turned nasty after a reporter, following on the challenger's words in a rambling four minute answer, asked the champion if he was pampered.
Before St Pierre could answer, Diaz jumped in.
"I hope so," said Diaz, kicking off a 13 second interjection that contained six variations of the F bomb.
"If I had that much money, I'd be pampering myself the (blank) up. I'd be having (people) pamper my (stuff) left and right. There'd be (people) every hour on the hour showing up to pamper me out. Period."
Said GSP: "Let me tell you something, uneducated fool, listen to me."
Diaz then countered. "I'm not stupid, I can tell what's what."
"Yeah, you look pretty smart right now," St Pierre replied.
Then the champion said his piece.
"I've not always been like this. I've not always been rich. I started from the bottom. I made myself, I worked very hard to be where I am now. I know you don't believe this because you didn't succeed yet. And maybe you will never succeed in your life because I don't think you're smart enough to understand (what) you should do to reach that point."