thaFormula.com - So it seemed like with the Pride situation, once again you were brought in to lose when they put you up against Gomi, is that what it felt like?

Nick Diaz - Oh absolutely. Yeah what the fuck was that shit! No shit! Trying to do me in huh? I was about to be done for in their eyes huh? What was that shit about? But I always wanted to fight that guy. I looked at it since that's how they are trying to do me, I said "that's even better." That's what's supposed to happen then. If that's what's supposed to happen and they are supposed to do me in then that's what I get, whatever. If not, then that's what they get. I'll fucking put an ass whooping on dude and most likely it's gonna be an ass whooping on dude judging from the looks of this dude. He's gonna take an ass whooping and that's how I felt about fighting Mr. Gomi.

thaFormula.com - But this time around did you guys take the time to prepare a good game plan for Gomi?

Nick Diaz - I actually didn't have my brother around because he was on the Ultimate Fighter show. So I didn't have my brother around and I didn't have Jake Shields and Gilbert around either. They were having a lot of things coming up with Jake's upcoming fight and they were running around doing this and that and I had my guys that were about to be fighting in a April 19th show in Sacramento. I had all my guys fighting in that by the way. But I was busy training with those guys for that fight and trying to focus on a game plan. But I pretty much knew what it was gonna be about. It was gonna be about getting down in the boxing gym and getting in shape to get ready for a boxing fight pretty much. I had a good Jiu Jitsu game for this fight against this guy and I know he is a type of a wrestler. You don't really wanna shoot on this type of guy considering who I am and who he is and how its gonna work out between me and him. I didn't wanna be shooting in on this guy and using any type of strength to beat this guy. There was no point in getting into a power struggle with this guy, so I basically wanted to get in there and throw more punches than him, just be a little more accurate with my punches and probably move my head a little better. The thing is that I had to get in there for a minute and find my range. Just like anytime I spar with somebody new, it's the same thing all the time. I get in there with a new guy and I got to find my range with this guy for a minute and I might take punches. A lot of times I will have a hard time warming up. In my future fights, I'm gonna try and have a better warm up. I would have had a really good warm up in this fight, but I thought there was gonna be an intermission and all of a sudden I'm asking about this intermission and they are telling me "oh no there is no intermission." I'm like "ah shit, oh well I got 2 fights left." So I start warming up and I figure "okay it's gonna be good because I got 30 minutes." But all of a sudden dude gets knocked out. I'm like "oh shit." So I'm like "its cool, I got another fight and I might get 15 minutes out of it." All of a sudden dude gets tapped out or choked out so I'm like "oh shit." So I went out there and I was a little bit cold but I was warming up the best I could on the way out. I had also just got up from a long nap. I just went ahead and took a nap through the day. I felt real good, laid underneath the table because I didn't have a lot of people in my room so it was nice. So when I got up I thought I had an intermission to warm up with. Anyway, I got out there and I had to wait to get caught with a hot one before I woke up. Then I started throwing punches and I found my range and it worked out a lot better.

thaFormula.com - Did you underestimate his power though, because I haven't seen you go down like that since that Jeremy fight?

Nick Diaz - You know what, I don't remember being dazed. I remember putting my hand down behind me when I was getting ready to go down. It was more so that I was worried on getting followed up on. I was off balance when I got hit and that's why it was such a good hit too and I had my chin kind of sticking out. I just didn't have my punches going right and I wasn't warmed up good enough. I didn't hit any mitts in the back, I didn't even throw enough punches in the back before I got to come out. I wasn't quite as warmed up as I would have wanted to be. So on the way down, I seen him and I was ready for him automatically. Beause I felt like I didn't wanna get followed up on and I'm putting my hand down as I sat down and I was well aware that this guy was coming. That's why he didn't over do it when he came in because he knew I wasn't hurt. He didn't wanna try and punch in on me from on top. He didn't feel like he could land good punches from there I'm sure.

thaFormula.com - Were the Pride rules as beneficial as you always imagined they would be?

Nick Diaz - Absolutely. Just that little bit of me knowing helped me fight the way I wanted to fight. I think those rules are really beneficial to the way I fight.

thaFormula.com - Was there a certain point in the Gomi fight where you felt he couldn't hurt you anymore?

Nick Diaz - Yeah, after I got up I was like "man." I think a lot of what that cut was is that a lot of guys I fight are shorter then me and he was bouncing off of the ropes a lot and I kept getting smacked in the face with sort of like a head butt. Like the top of peoples head always hits me in the face or in the forehead. Like Riggs was a little bit taller then Gomi. Gomi's head hit me in the eye. Riggs is a little bit taller and his head hit me in the forehead and then I had that blood coming down on my forehead in that fight. So people are going "oh Riggs is winning" and I'm going "motherfucker!" I get head butt, I get cut every fucking fight. So my face is swelling up and they don't put that metal on you in Pride and I don't have an experienced cut guy back there. So I had this big swell on my face and I'm going back out there to fight. Then I get hit with a little punch or something that just kind of skins across it sideways because there is no grease on there. So it just tears it wide open. Then I got this big vagina fucking chilling on the side of my face. You know I'm not throwing punches like this guy. I'm not trying to fucking throw some punch and miss and go flying through the ropes, I'm trying to set it up and then you gonna see those types of punches coming. From the looks of it, he was going and that's why he took me down. That's why a lot of times your gonna see a guy uh, you know I get 'em going and ready to go out and then he's gonna shoot on me? That's because he's about done. He's about ready to go and in a boxing fight your gonna see a finish. In an MMA fight your are gonna see a guy take me down and then I'm gonna have to finish it down there. The difference between me and a lot of guys is once the guy does take me down, I'm gonna be able to finish it right there. This goes along with the game plan now and he won't just be able to hold on and score points. He ain't gonna be able to elbow and he's gonna be really confused in there trying to punch me and the technical aspect is gonna come out and I'm gonna finish. See what I mean? This is the difference in the scoring and it's funny that I'm the guy, I got to get here and set this type of standard so people can understand what the fuck is going on and understand that it's real crazy how it works out. It's funny, all of a sudden we got these fucking dorks who got in there and they fucking open their mouth and next thing you know we got these MMA terms. Like this term a "cagey veteran." Where did they get that? From the cage? What the fuck is that! And that sets the standard and then that just becomes what is. Because this is MMA and this is like the beginning of shit. There wasn't MMA 20 years ago, it's now. So now when people go out there and they do something, it sets the standard. You got this Aoki guy choking people and then you got me out there choking people with the same move and then now everybody is doing the same fucking moves. All of a sudden you got freaks everywhere doing all kinds of crazy different style grappling Jiu Jitsu and the sport grows and evolves into a whole new situation now. Then you understand how these rules come into play because of how technical people get and how everybody learns. Then you all feel like fucking assholes and I called it 'cause I fucking knew it. I told all you bastards and I was about the youngest one. Of course I started before everybody so it's not like I was like everybody else where the more you know the less you learn. I had a chance to kind of watch everybody and see from an outside perspective and shut my mouth cause I'm younger. I'm opening my mouth just a little bit more now because I just beat the number 1 ranked 160 pounder in the world. I would say that makes me about pound for pound the best fucking fighter in the fucking world, considering that I would say that the lightweight fighters are fucking better then everybody else, even though they wanna can them half the time and plug the heavyweights. The fucking lightweight fighters are way fucking better. There is no way these big guys can move as fast and train as much to get as good in the last 2 years, and the last 2 years is when you had to be around to get that good because you had to see all this shit that was on TV and the Internet to have set the standards to you to learn from. See what I mean? Everything comes from a background of some sort of foundation and background beforehand. That's why I train at the Ceasar Gracie camp where we all know fucking Jiu Jitsu and now we're gonna know how to box in a minute once I get everybody going.

thaFormula.com - Now I have seen Gomi lose before, but I have never seen him take so many punches standing like that and...

Nick Diaz - Yeah I fought him. See the other guys weren't trying to fight him too. I fought him and beat him how they wanted to beat him. BJ Penn is the only thing that comes close to that but he beats everybody else too and they robbed him out of fights too. He should have won that St. Pierre fight. They should have gave that fight to him. They tried to do him in too and he came from my same school. I don't think anybody knows that. Nobody plugs Ralph Gracie enough. His brother sat there in the car with me the other day and told me he was a Ralph Gracie student. He was a Ralph Gracie student before he left that place. Steve Heath was also a Ralph Gracie student. So we' re all a bunch of the same Gracie Jiu Jitsu students here and we are also the only 2 motherfuckers to have the Gracie Jiu Jitsu School that knows how to fight MMA and box people right in a fight in MMA.

thaFormula.com - Finally, How do you think a fight would go between you and BJ Penn?

Nick Diaz - I think that he would just have to be in really good shape to fight me. If he got in really good shape, I couldn't tell you how that would go. I like BJ Penn, he's one of my favorite fighters. I would never like to get into an ordeal where we don't like each other. I would try to keep that as sportsmanlike as possible versus somebody like BJ Penn. But I think that yeah, if I could come into the fight in better shape then BJ, I think it would be a really good fight. I think we have really similar types of Jiu Jitsu skills. I think he's more experienced than me Jiu Jitsu wise but I think I've been more hard at work lately than I think he has as far as strong training and fighting hard lately. So that's all I can say about a fight like that with me versus BJ Penn.

thaFormula.com - What about someone like St. Pierre?

Nick Diaz - Someone like George is gonna have really big problems with me is what I think. I seen him against a guy who was a very similar type of grappler as me except I'm bigger and stronger than him. He had a lot of problems with this guy and I believe that I am a lot better of a stand up fighter then St. Pierre, so I think he would have a lot of problems with me. I think that he would probably win in a 3 round decision taking an ass whooping. If I was blessed with some better luck that day, I would probably tap him out or knock him out like in the first or second round or something like that. But at no time would I be in danger of him finishing the fight probably from anything other then a cut.

thaFormula.com - So who are they talking about you fighting on Showtime's Pro Elite?

Nick Diaz - I haven't heard anything about any opponent. I welcome any challengers. They haven't talked about any opponents for me though. They just talked about me fighting in the Grand Prix in Pride and then they are talking about me fighting in Pro Elite but I don't know who, what, when or whatever. Right now I'm just training for the Pan Ams.

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