Twitter Mailbag: The enigma of Nick Diaz, the rivalry of Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier, plus more

For week without a UFC event, this sure wasn’t a slow one in the world of MMA.

That’s why this week’s Twitter Mailbag is rolling up its purely figurative sleeves to tackle everything from the Nick Diaz vs. Anderson Silva news to the beef-in-progress between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier. Plus some other stuff, too.

You can ask a question of your own by tweeting it to @BenFowlkesMMA.

@benfowlkesMMA #TMB AndersonxDiaz: Is it "main event material"(semi-retired fighters, 2 fight losing streak)? Thoughts on "Needle"xSports.—
FernandoZylbersztejn (@f_zylbersztejn) July 30, 2014

This is one of those things you don’t want to overthink, Fernando. Like a really good joke, or like a beautiful sunset that may or may not have been aesthetically improved by lingering air pollution. Sure, you could ask yourself why two aging fighters from different weight classes are fighting in the main event of the Super Bowl weekend card, especially when it’s so unclear what a win would mean for either of them in the big picture sense. You could point out that Nick Diaz hasn’t won a fight since 2011, while Silva’s last win came against a ‘roided-up and still completely in over his head Stephan Bonnar in 2012. You could play out all the possibilities in your head – what if they both look old and slow? what if they just stare at and taunt each other all night? – until you’ve drained all the fun out of the idea.

But why? Where would that get you?

This is a fight that’s fun partly because it feels like what you’d do if the UFC were just a real-life video game for you to control at your whim. Who would you throw in there, just to see what it would look like, if things like weight classes and records and contracts were of no concern? You’d do Jon Jones vs. Cain Velasquez, obviously. You might even do Demetrious Johnson vs. Mark Hunt, just because you’re a sicko. But also, you know it wouldn’t take long before you queued up Silva vs. Diaz, homie. That’s what this is. It’s as much about satisfying our curiosity as anything else. And the fact that, on paper, it seems like a fight that would be a hell of a lot of fun to watch? Brother, that doesn’t hurt either.

Hey @benfowlkesMMA, Diaz says he fights not because he wants to but because he feels he has to. Should I be compelled or terrified by that?—
christopher curtis (@titocurtis) July 31, 2014

Compelled. No wait, terrified. No wait, concerned? Gah! Why does it have to be just one thing? Why can’t it be a complex and even contradictory tangle of emotions, much like fighting for a living itself probably is?

In a way, Diaz’s remarks about fighting not because he wants to, but because he feels he has to, made me return to a question I’ve asked myself many times over the years: Is Diaz the craziest person in this crazy sport, or is he the only one who sees it for what it really is? For instance, take this quote from Wednesday’s conference call:

“I don’t enjoy fighting,” Diaz said. “I don’t use that word (excited) in this sport. I use that word like maybe I’m starving, and food is showing up. I’m getting excited. That’s excitement. Or I’m excited to have a couple of days off. I’m excited to fight somebody? I don’t know if people are confused with that term when it comes to fighting.”

And man, when he puts it that way, don’t you feel a little weird about your own interest in human-on-human violence for the sake of sport and entertainment? Doesn’t it seem like it is not Diaz who is the madman, but in fact all of us?

On the other hand, you watch him fight, or even just watch him seek out conflicts in areas where others wouldn’t even bother looking, and you have to wonder whether he isn’t kidding himself a little bit. Yes, this is the thing he’s good at, but I don’t know of too many people who are that good at things that they don’t enjoy at least a little bit.

On the other other hand, can’t it be both? Can’t he be good at this thing, and enjoy it even as he hates it? Can’t he hate the way that he enjoys it, and vice versa? If anything, Diaz’s take seems appropriately complex. It also seems far more believable and interesting than what we hear from the fighters who tell us that they just want to bang, bro.

@benfowlkesMMA Rumble, DC and Gustafsson… Can Jones beat them all and if so, then what? #TMB—
Bill Lavoy (@RumpoPlays) July 31, 2014

Then he’s pretty much the greatest ever, like it or not. Can he do it? Well, he’s technically a third of the way there, thanks to that decision win over Alexander Gustafsson. If he gets past Daniel Cormier the question might soon become not just whether he can do it, but how many times he’ll have to prove it in order to satisfy us.

@benfowlkesMMA What's up with the MMA adage "Steel sharpens steel"? Steel blunts steel. That's why swords are sharpened with whetstones.—
Jay Bradley (@jmichaelbrad) July 31, 2014

@benfowlkesMMA What are your thoughts on this Super Heavy weight division Dana White was talking about? #TMB—
Cory Andersen (@corysix6) July 30, 2014

The only good reason I can come up with to justify starting up a super heavyweight division is so that Shaquille O’Neal and Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane can finally meet inside the octagon. Otherwise, I don’t see the point. The UFC has a hard enough time finding good, young-ish fighters to stock the current heavyweight class. Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t think the overly exclusionary 265-pound weight limit is the true source of that problem.

@benfowlkesMMA Do you think Daniel Cormier's trash talk is hurting his public image?—
Andre Harrison (@Harrison101HD) July 31, 2014

Not at all. While some aspects of Daniel Cormier‘s attempted trash talk seem childish (“make me shut up!”) and others seem earnestly direct (“I’m gonna f–k you up”), they all seem genuine, and kind of endearing, in a strange way. That’s why, as I explained in this recent video, I’m totally into this beef between Jones and Cormier, even when it seems somewhat ridiculous.

But especially from Cormier’s perspective, the best part about this rivalry is that you’re cast as the good guy almost by default. Jones’ relationship with fans is…fraught, to say the least. He’s not unlike Ronda Rousey, in that a healthy percentage of the people buying his fights are doing so because they want to see him get beaten up. Those people will automatically root for Cormier as the next best hope to fulfill their wishes. All he has to do is not alienate them between now and the fight, which shouldn’t be so hard for an honest, naturally gregarious guy like DC. Just take his description of the conflict between himself and Jones on a recent MMAjunkie Radio appearance:

“Do I like Jon Jones personally?” Cormier said. “Not very much. Do I respect Jon Jones personally and competitively? Yeah. Jon has a great family. I see his parents at his fights, and I love that, because in his family, I see my family, how my parents are so supportive of me. I love that he has a great family in terms of his children. I like a lot of things about Jon Jones. The one thing I don’t like is we just can’t seem to mix. Sometimes two people don’t mix, but I respect him, and I’m going out there to defeat him.”

That doesn’t even really count as trash talk, but it does feel really true. Who can’t relate to that sentiment? Sometimes you meet someone, and the two of you just don’t like each other. There’s not even a good explanation for it. It just happens. Now imagine the two of you were going to fight for money in front of a bunch of people. Yeah, that’s bound to get interesting.

@benfowlkesMMA Biggest pet peeve about MMA fans? Mines gotta be wearing MMA apparel when you don't fight. #tapouttoughguys—
Ty Flores (@TyyyTheGuy) July 30, 2014

I don’t know, do you have to be a Dallas Cowboy in order to wear the t-shirt? The same way people will wear shirts of their favorite bands in a public display of their personal interests, couldn’t they also buy some merch to support their favorite fighters? That doesn’t bother me so much.

As a media member, my biggest pet peeve is probably when people complain about “negative” coverage. For one, it makes me wonder whether they consume all media coverage that way, classifying every story as either negative or positive, which seems to miss the point entirely. For another, it ignores the question: Negative for whom? If you’re arguing for better fighter pay, does that go into the “negative” column for the UFC, or the “positive” column for fighters? If you want stronger pay-per-view lineups, wouldn’t that be good for fans even if it’s a knock on some of the UFC’s recent offerings?

As a fan, however, I guess my biggest pet peeve is when people just write off whole divisions. You’ll hear them say, “I’m not into the lighter weight classes,” or “I’m just not into women’s MMA.” I mean, fine, everybody has their favorites, and there’s nothing wrong with expressing a preference. But if you like this sport, how can you not recognize that great stuff can happen in every division, regardless of size or gender? That’s one of the best things about it. Big guys get to play football and tall guys get to play basketball. But anyone – and not just guys – could turn out to be an awesome fighter.

@benfowlkesMMA Did Lawlers "illegal" headkick exist in a quantum state whereby, once blocked, it became legal? Postulate.—
Cameron Chapman (@Chapperton) July 30, 2014

Postulation the first: That kick was borderline. As in, as it was happening it was nearly impossible to tell whether it was a kick from Robbie Lawler that came a little too early, while Matt Brown was still technically a grounded opponent, or whether it was a kick that came at precisely the moment Brown rose up off the mat. Maybe it even forced him to become a non-grounded opponent just to get his hands up in time to block it.

Postulation the second: If the kick was blocked, meaning that it hit Brown’s arms rather than his head, it can’t really be called a kick to the head of a grounded opponent, now can it? At that point, isn’t it a kick to the arms of a grounded opponent, which would be perfectly legal?

With all that doubt swirling around in the split second that he had to make an important decision, I think referee John McCarthy did the right thing by doing nothing at all.

@benfowlkesMMA out of the 24 women's bantamweight fights, there have been 11 finishes, only 7 if you don't count Ronda's. Is this a problem?—
Sam M (@samyboi911) July 30, 2014

First of all, sample size, bro. It’d be a mistake for us to draw too many firm conclusions just yet, because there simply haven’t been enough women’s bantamweight fights in the UFC for the stats to really tell us anything.

Second of all, even if we were the type of jerks to base conclusions on insignificant data, 11 fights finished in 24 outings would give us an overall finish rate of 45.8 percent. According to Reed Kuhn over at Fightnomics (he’s also got a book out, btw), the finish rate for the UFC as a whole so far in 2014, as of July 3, is 43 percent. For the past couple years, it’s hovered closer to the 50 percent mark. In other words, the women’s bantamweight stats aren’t all that noteworthy. The figure drops down to 35 percent if you remove Rousey from the pool, but a) why would you do that? and b) what do you think the lightweight finish rate would be if you removed someone like, say, Donald Cerrone?

Point is, if we’re going to look at the division, we’ve got to look at the whole thing. So far, nothing in the numbers tells us that there’s any cause for concern.

@benfowlkesMMA If UFC would forget about "bigger than NFL" & would settle for "pretty big for human chess" wouldn't we all bennefit? #tmb—
Til Breidenbach (@tilmobaxter) July 30, 2014

Maybe, but I don’t blame the UFC for its ambition so much as its tactics. As a business enterprise, I can understand why Zuffa executives feel like this thing is a shark that has to keep swimming to stay alive. It must always move forward, breaking new ground, taking new risks. I get that, even if that might sometimes lead to you taking risks for the sake of risk.

What I have a problem with is this gradual drift away from what got them here. The thing you used to be able to say to your boxing loyalist buddies was that for all its faults, the UFC didn’t expect you to buy a pay-per-view just to see one fight, the way boxing did (and mostly still does). UFC fight cards were a package deal, which is one of the reasons that the UFC itself became big time rather than just individual fighters like Chuck Liddell or Georges St-Pierre. In trying to spread its tentacles into every corner of the globe, it seems like the UFC has sacrificed some of that quality in favor of quantity lately.

The good news is, there are some signs that the UFC has recognized that problem and is making moves to fix it. UFC 178? That’s a great all-around fight card. UFC 177? It’s headlined by one of those immediate rematch deals, as well as a just-for-the-hell-of-it flyweight title bout, but two title fights is still some bang for your buck. Even the two recent Fight Night events and the UFC on FOX 12 card showed off a stronger overall lineup. There’s reason for optimism, is what I’m saying. Hopefully I don’t regret saying that once we see what the UFC’s plans for 2015 look like.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Twitter Mailbag appears every Thursday on MMAjunkie.