There was something so utterly Nate Diaz when, midway through a press conference for his UFC 202 rematch against Conor McGregor, he suddenly stood up and strutted right off that stage.
The establishment?
UFC president Dana White?
All those media doubters now asking questions?
And McGregor, still using that silken Irish mouth to talk a world of smack -- after showing up late for the press conference, yet another slight in a long line of them directed at Diaz?
To use one of Diaz's favorite phrases: [Expletive] you all.
That's what that march off the stage was. It was the finger, to the establishment, to McGregor, to the invisible doubters -- to all those who Diaz and his recently reinstated older brother Nick have always believed deal them a strong, steady dose of disrespect.
The F-bombs that followed? The water bottles Diaz rained down, setting McGregor off on his own pejorative-laced, water-bottle-throwing tirade? That's the actual man. That was the real Nate Diaz right there. It's always been that rage and anger -- and an authentic mix of crazy and focus, of ambitious fighter and to-hell-with-the-world malcontent -- that's powered him.
The same things that set him off Wednesday motivated him to take UFC 196 -- on almost no notice -- against McGregor. The doubt mixed with the chance; the chance to punch that over-talking mouth and shut it the hell up; the call only a loner can feel when the establishment invites you reluctantly into something they still believe you can't do. Diaz, of course, methodically busted McGregor up -- and with him all those haters, at least as he sees them.
"What makes Nate such a remarkable fighter is that he's himself, he's always just himself," Cody 'No Love' Garbrandt, a Diaz friend and fellow UFC fighter, told me this week. "Every interview, every fight, he's out there, 'Kill or be killed.' He goes out there and fights and that's how he acts.
"Authentic. Him and his brother are like that. Rare breed."
Rare indeed, both in terms of what makes them tick and the fact that, as Garbrandt said, there's not a phony bone in either. What you see is what you get.
I've covered the Diaz brothers before, and what has always been true about them that is not about most of their UFC contemporaries is the boiling anger you see at press conferences or in the Octagon is a kind of rage that doesn't subside. Other fighters pose, push, fuss, talk crap -- then hug and say nice things afterward. They let it go. They exhale. It's human nature.
Not these guys.
For Nate and Nick Diaz, there's no love afterward, no melting of the mayhem inside them that pushed each through training, through the press obligations, under the lights and into the actual battle. Their ferocity is real. It has no expiration date. They hate. They vent. They feel umbrage. They stew. Even when they've just won.
That's one reason they have no fear. One reason why Nate, bloodied but hardly bowed, took all the abuse McGregor could offer at 196 and then cut through him. McGregor may have The Mouth, but Diaz, always stewing, has always had the chin. It's part of the reason McGregor had no answer for all that pent-up fury. Conor's added fuel is his arrogance and charm, and that will certainly sell tickets to build a brand. Diaz's fuel is rage -- pure, simple, focused rage.
Throw in the added pounds Diaz has on McGregor, given their normally different weight classes, and Diaz presents a unique problem for one of the sport's most energizing and important fighters.
This isn't to say McGregor can't win Saturday and reclaim some of the shine Diaz took from him in March. He can. He's the favorite. His own anger Wednesday certainly reflects a burning desire to get some revenge, and McGregor, obviously, is a deeply gifted fighter not to be overlooked.
But Diaz is who Diaz is -- unvarnished, real and dangerous. He is a man who will do what he did at a press conference -- who will tell the collected establishment to go to hell -- times 100 once he walks inside that Octagon.
So get ready. Because the only guarantee when The Mouth for the second time meets The Malcontent is that the f-bombs and water bottles will be replaced by fists, blood and a battle between two very different fighters.
