Nick Diaz Looks Back At Fighting Roots

There is no doubt that two of the most game fighters in the UFC today, and in the history of the promotion altogether, are Stockton, California born and bred brothers Nick and Nate Diaz.

Older Diaz brother, Nick, is a former welterweight title challenger who’s brash competitive nature has resonated with mixed martial arts (MMA) fans across the world throughout his nine-year UFC career. Diaz’s high-volume boxing style mixed with his Gracie jiu jitsu black belt ground game has made him an imposing force inside the Octagon, as he earns 13 knockouts and eight submission victories in his career.

Before he threw down inside the Octagon, however, Diaz first had to slug it out as a youngster in high school, as he detailed during a recent interview on Opie Radio (courtesy of MMA Fighting), and it greatly affected his performance in the classroom:

“I was never, like, picking on people or anything like that. I was more the other way around,” Diaz said. “I was a little insecure, I was broke. I was on welfare getting dropped off around the corner. My mom, she dropped me off down the street, she’s driving a sh*tty car. And I wouldn’t go to school unless my clothes looked right or something. I had a really hot girlfriend in high school and I’d get into fights over that. And by the time I got into high school, I was moved around into a lot of schools, so I was getting into fights in high school.

“And then I had bad attendance. They put me on some half-day thing where they’re like, ‘okay, you’re dangerous. We want you to make perfect attendance before you can come back to a full day, and we’re going to escort you from class to class.’ So I’m, like, already embarrassed and insecure enough to be in school, I’m getting in fights all the time, and then my mom, she was kind of a pushover. She wasn’t going to go, ‘hey, this is bullsh*t,’ so I just basically had no shot at doing well in school. So I dropped out sophomore year and starting competing in jiu-jitsu.”

Once Diaz began training in jiu jitsu he learned that he could choke out even the biggest of foes that he’d come across in the mean streets of Stockton. Diaz stated that he was so confident in his ability that he once told a friend that he could choke out his father:

“I was 15 years old,” Diaz said. “You had a bunch of wannabe pro bodybuilders, football players, and pro wrestling — everybody was doing pro wrestling back in the day and a lot of those guys tried to transition over. So I always had different looks in the gym, like strong guys, steroids. … I was already doing martial arts and I was already getting into fights. I actually went to go train to learn how to fight better, so when I ended up in a fight over my girlfriend or over whatever gangster bullsh*t I had that was going on back then, I was going to get the better of it.

“And then I started having real confidence. I’d come home and tell my friends, like, ‘yo, dude, I just tapped out this guy, he’s buff.’ I’d be like, ‘dude, I could choke your dad, you don’t understand.’ I’m 14, I could whoop your dad’s ass. I was fanatical about it then. But once I turned pro, that was it, it was over. I was like, okay, this sucks.”

Diaz believes that one key to his success inside the Octagon is the fact that he doesn’t have a ‘nice wife and nice life’ to come home to everyday, unlike fighters such as the now-former UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez who Diaz used as a prime example to his argument: