While support for Nick Diaz continues to swell, lessons to be learned in his mistakes

Nick Diaz

Since a lot of folks are throwing around words like “arbitrary” and “capricious” and “travesty” in the wake of Nick Diaz’s five-year suspension, here’s another word: perjury.

That’s what Diaz committed not once, not twice, but on three occasions when he checked “no” on the pre-fight medical questionnaire that asked him whether he’d used any drugs within the past two weeks. When you sign that form, you do so at the risk of prosecution.

Yet so many fighters put about as much thought into it as they do when signing for a Fed-Ex package. And over and over again, it proves to be their undoing, no matter how competent their defense is in poking holes in the collection process (which, let’s face it, it’s pretty easy to do when you’re talking about underfunded, frequently inept state regulatory bodies). The questionnaire is the trump card that gets pulled every time.

The truly arbitrary and capricious thing about the Nevada State Athletic Commission, it seems, is that they can be so wrong on so many fronts, but when punishments are meted out, they only have to be right – and they are always right – about one thing: A fighter lied about what was in his body. The commission’s legal rep made sure the commissioners and everyone else in the room knew what Diaz wrote. It was a catalyst for a worst-hits collection that justified commissioner Pat Lundvall’s initial push for a lifetime ban.

All of the minutia-driven challenges to the NSAC’s collection procedures were impressive to behold (although the bar for legal defense in MMA is flyweight height). The problem, however, is that in the end, they were made way after the fact, after Diaz, a guy who’s not exactly a stranger to professional fighting or being in hot water for marijuana use, popped to a rudimentary urine test, sounding off the alarm bells. Even without the conflicting testing data and the alleged inquiry for a pot TUE, it would have taken all of two seconds for Nevada Deputy Attorney General Chris Eccles or NSAC Executive Director Bob Bennett to check Diaz’s pre-fight paperwork to see that, yep, “No” was checked beside “Have you used any drug, substance, or cream in the last two weeks?”

What’s really a waste of time is watching fighters and overpriced lawyers hurl themselves against this wall, over and over again. Diaz’s lawyer, while sharp and logical and insistent, clearly thought he was in a courtroom. He couldn’t be any more wrong. The NSAC’s conference rooms always have been quasi-legal, with the standard basically being, “Is this accusation more likely than not to be true?” And until there’s a wholesale overhaul of the commission, with its strict liability standard, the process is going to be weighted toward the commission and its paperwork. Diaz was not, by far, the first person to get railroaded by this system, but he is the one who could suffer the most because of it.

The thing is, this might have been avoided. Diaz could have been proactive. He could have submitted an application to get a therapeutic-use exemption for pot back in July 2014, when the fight was announced. He could have written an email: “Listen guys, you may already know, I smoke a lot of weed. I have a medical card in California. I am concerned given my history with previous positive tests that I might run afoul of your great commission, so tell me what I need to do to make sure I can fight Anderson Silva without issue.”

Impossible, I know. But if Diaz, or more accurately his reps, had tried the front door method, the commission probably might have had a more receptive ear. They might have even gotten the attention of the UFC, with which the commission works “hand in glove.”

Now that everything has gone so awry for Diaz, a lot of people seem to lose sight of the fact that, indisputably, he broke one important rule on several occasions. It’s easy to see why. He’s just such a compelling fighter and, well, interesting, personality, and the drug he uses is so benign and common, the punishment stands in relief.

But as the commission made so clear on Monday, they value deference to their rules above almost everything else. When you trample on those, they will throw the book at you in arbitrary and capricious ways. Unless, of course, they’re never given such an easy opportunity.

Diaz could have checked “yes” and the NSAC would have been alerted his use of a substance for which they’d changed their rules to prevent fighters like him from popping positive. He might still have failed the second test, according to one lab, but at least they couldn’t have used his omission against him. That would be a refreshing break from the commission’s usual refrain when they begin deliberations.

Is the NSAC’s punishment, as one Diaz attorney said, “an abuse of discretion?” That appears to be a question that will be decided by a court, if the charge toward litigation continues. Monday’s decision arrived in the wake of the commission’s get-tough push on fighters, and Diaz, along with Wanderlei Silva, is bearing the brunt. Diaz’s challenge may eventually put the entire process on trial, as his rep suggested.

But sooner rather than later, fighters should think about being more transparent with the people that hold their livelihoods in check. At the very least, they should think about checking yes on that box. In a sport where fighters are conditioned to hide every appearance of weakness, going the other way might save them years on the bench.

For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.