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« | Home | »

Is the GSP/Nick Diaz fight a harder fight to sell to the public than first thought?

By Zach Arnold | March 13, 2013

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Remember when Dana White said he wouldn’t put with the antics Nick Diaz demonstrated while fighting for Strikeforce?

Is the pressure to sell the fight mounting? Nick was a 3-to-1 underdog to start and now all the money has come in on GSP winning decisively.

So, instead of making his case in the press as to why he’ll win Saturday’s fight in Montreal, Nick Diaz has avoided the press. He reportedly turned down an ESPN feature from Josh Gross on Nick and the hard times Stockton is currently facing with bankruptcy. It makes this new item from Josh (Diaz reveals an image-conscious side) quite ironic.

Today, Nick no-showed the open fighter workouts and Dana White promised some sort of punishment (maybe a sternly-worded letter).

The only media Nick has done for the fight is last week’s conference call. The advertising budget for this fight is nowhere near the blanket coverage that was used for Ronda Rousey’s Anaheim fight.

In the words of evil Smoogy, “I guess Evil GSP (with his dark place) was a flop and now we’re going all-in on Generally Disobedient But Not Exactly Evil Nick Diaz.” Just keep the Honda sponsorship away from him. Soccer-mom approved.

Twitter was full of wise cracks about the white smoke puffing from Vatican City while Nick Diaz was AWOL.

Cesar Gracie told Ariel Helwani that Dana White approved Nick not showing up at the Wednesday workouts. Dana told Jim Rome that if Diaz no-shows the press conference, there will be punishment. Perhaps Dana’s in an extra-foul mood given that TUF drew only 1.12 million viewers last night on FX and the programming afterwards drew 2.4 million viewers.

Topics: Canada, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 13 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

13 Responses to “Is the GSP/Nick Diaz fight a harder fight to sell to the public than first thought?”

  1. 45 Huddle says:

    Are they even promoting TUF anymore on FX?

    The Rousey promotion is needed because nobody knew who she was. GSP will sell a minimum of 500,000 PPVs by just showing up. Why spend advertising dollars on him that won’t have a return on investment?

    GSP vs. Diaz will do between 650,000 and 750,000 buys. Which I think is a home run for the last few years. I don’t think Diaz is as big of a name as Zuffa thinks.

    Does anybody feel bad for Dana White right now? I for one do not. He gave Diaz a shot at a title he did not deserve. He even avoided giving him any of the larger number of wrestlers in the UFC to see if he could still compete against that style. Now he has to put up with all of his garbage. White is an idiot in this situation….

    • Chris says:

      Why would you feel sorry for Dana? Dude its a stunt, you think he cares Diaz missed an open workout?

      He will care if he misses the pc but they dont even need to push this fight, this fight is gonna do 600k without a single commercial or countdown or anything.

      With that it probably does 700k, lol as I’m typing this a GSP/Diaz commercial just came on during the Heat/76ers game.

      GSP anytime he fights is gonna do 700k.

      Just wait for the PC and then the weigh in, if they get heated during the weigh in that will sell even more PPVs.

      • 45 Huddle says:

        You think it’s a stunt? Diaz got pulled from a fight before for missing too many UFC obligations. So I wouldn’t call any of this a stunt from either side.

  2. Chris says:

    What does justified doing 2.4 mill have to do with TUF?

    You mean one of the most critically acclaimed cable series did better than TUF?

    Its funny mma supremacy does everything he can to push Bellators numbers, live/replay/DVR but notice when he does TUF numbers he always makes sure to show you the movie before did x and Justified did x to stick it to the UFC that the show before and after did better.

    • 45 Huddle says:

      MMA Supremacy is one of those guys who cheers for anything that is competing against the UFC. Same as that guy liquidrob on The UG. 2 years ago they were both cheerleading Strikeforce.

      The UFC’s ratings don’t matter much. They are locked into FOX for so long…. And they are changing channels soon. The ratings really have no impact on anything.

      Bellator’s ratings on the other hand certainly have an impact on their future…. One way or the other….

  3. Chuck says:

    What’s the over/under on Nick Diaz getting cut from UFC if he loses? Especially if he looses bad? I’m sure Ben Askren can use another person to be a wet blanket on…

  4. 45 Huddle says:

    The UFC 158 Pre-Fight Press Conference was comical. Nick Diaz is a mental midget.

    GSP was a little annoyed. It sort of reminds me of GSP/Hughes 2…. How Hughes was trying to bully him around…. GSP looked all pissed….

    We all saw how that ended. Hughes got demolished.

  5. edub says:

    If I take anything from that press conference its the reassurance of something I always knew; that Ariel is Dana’s lapdog.

  6. david m says:

    DON’T BE SCARED HOMIE!

    I really, really, really hope Nick shocks the world. He is just crazy enough to do it. Georges has never fought anyone with Nick’s boxing or his bottom game who isn’t significantly smaller than he is and with horrid cardio (I’m looking at you, BJ Penn).

    Jake Shields outstruck GSP for 2 rounds. Matt Serra put him down. Nick has a legit shot. MAKE IT HAPPEN NICK!

  7. Nepal says:

    It’s getting so difficult to root for GSP. The guy couldn’t finish a sandwich. It would certainly shake up the division if Diaz won but really, does he have a chance? Even if Diaz wins, GSP by virtue of being a long time champ almost certainly gets an immediate rematch.

    Diaz’s boxing is tricky but if Condit could outstrike him, so can GSP. He won’t make the mistake of ‘running’ as Condit did but he probably will step back or sideways to stay out of slugfests. No way Diaz’s bottom game is going to affect GSP. Diaz has a great triangle from the bottom but GSP has for sure been working on that specific defense for years plus he is physically too strong. No way Diaz catches him with it.

    I expect a 50-45 decision win for you know who. If one of them stop the other, it’s a bonus for me but I can’t see that happening. The only possibility of that might be GSP dropping elbows and KO’ing Diaz.

    I think Diaz is an idiot and a punk but he is an exciting fighter. I just have a hard time voting for GSP after his past so many safe-first fights. Kind of don’t care who wins, will have to wait until the fight actually starts before I know who I’ll be voting for.

  8. RST says:

    “Is the GSP/Nick Diaz fight a harder fight to sell to the public than first thought?”

    Are you implying that the relationship between dingdongs on twitter and shiny things is an unreliable one?

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