Former Strikeforce welterweight champion and UFC fan favorite Nick Diaz spent the last year involuntarily in a rehabilitation center in Mexico. In an interview with the rehabilitation center, Baja Rehab, Diaz opened up about his experience and explained how he ended up there in the first place.
Prior to finding jiu-jitsu, Diaz was hanging out with a partying crowd as a young teenager. He’d get in gang fights and was at a crossroads.
“I started doing jiu-jitsu right away. I was 15, but I was 13 and 14 I was watching the UFC. Maybe younger than that. I was renting VHS UFC’s and watching UFC fighting and stuff like that, you know, smoking weed and I used to hang around a bunch of kids like they did a bunch of drugs. That’s kind of what we did,” Diaz said.
“But then I started training jiu-jitsu when I was 16. That’s all I did, and I was beating pro fighters. I was beating them on the mats, was beating them in the gym. Grown fighters. And I was competing in jiu-jitsu,” he explained.
Like with most friendships, life happens. Some of Diaz’ friends went on to college, got jobs while others went a different direction.
“We had a whole like 20 of us or something. We’re all friends … I had a pretty good group of friends. I mean, a lot of them did good or went to college, moved away. And then some of them stayed started f*cking up,” Diaz explained.
“I didn’t really maintain friendships for a long time. I was busy. I was fighting three to five fights a year for 17 years. All I was thinking about was weight. How much do I weigh? What am I going to eat? After a while you realize there’s more to life. That’s when I started getting into some trouble again. I was bringing some old friends back in the picture, and that really f*cked things up.”
Diaz had a successful fighting career and admitted to having a substance abuse problem at points in his life. He spent most of his earnings on training for and participating in triathlons. He’s more proud of being a triathlete than a mixed martial arts fighter.
“Looking at like my career as an athlete, as a world class athlete, as like a triathlete, I think I take more pride in that because none of the other fighters in the sport or in the world, none of them have done what I have done. They don’t even know about it,” he said.
“I’ve done so many races. I’ve done more races than pro triathletes. I would just race and race. Like, I spent my money from fighting on racing.”
Diaz found himself in a dire financial situation. He no longer had basic needs like transportation.
“That was one of my biggest problems before coming here. I didn’t have the means of transportation. I cut my circle shorter, and I didn’t have anybody to call. I had nowhere to go, so people thought it was best that I wind up here,” he said. “I just had a falling out with my current agents. I had a falling out with some friends. Nobody saw it my way and so I wound up here.”
“I’m grateful to be here, but I’m not grateful for anybody that had anything to do with me being here.”
