Backed by Ronda Rousey, the Reclusive Nick Diaz Is Becoming a Rallying Cry for MMA Community

It's way too early to know if Nick Diaz's career as a mixed martial artist is over following the Nevada State Athletic Commission's decision this week to suspend him for five years following a positive drug test for marijuana metabolites. Diaz's lawyers have said they'll appeal the decision, which could result in a shorter suspension or even (fingers crossed) a lifting of all sanctions. It's also possible the punishment would remain what it is and Diaz, now 32, would decide to fight again after the suspension had run its course, meaning he'd be back in the cage when he's 37. Which isn't the best age to fight MMA, but it's hardly unprecedented, and anyway Nick Diaz has built a career out of defying what's best.

He's also built his career on being the most divisive fighter in MMA. But if it's still too early to conclude that Nick Diaz will never fight again, it is becoming clearer with each passing day that, even if his career isn't dead, that reputation may now be. The strangest result of the NSAC's decision could just turn out to be that it was the moment that at long last turned the community of MMA fighters decisively in Diaz's favor.

A few outliers aside, the sentiment among mixed martial arts has been remarkably pro-Diaz since the decision came down on Monday, which is without doubt the first time in the Stockton native's nearly 15-year career one could say that. One always had to pick sides with Nick Diaz. He, like the Hebrew god, would spit out the lukewarm. But the number of fighters who have lined up over the years to both love and hate Diaz in equal measure and with equally fiery intensity seems like it might be equaled by the number unifying behind him now. Fellow UFC fighters like Bec Rawlings and Cole Miller and Norman Parke and rising political discontents like Tim Kennedy and former UFC fighters like Chris Leben and fighters fighting outside the promotion like "King Mo" Lawal and former UFC-fighters-turned-union-advocates like Jon Fitch and Nate Quarry and former fighters turned television personalities/UFC announcers like Kenny Florian and even longtime nemeses of Diaz like Diego Sanchez, who could not have swallowed more shit from Diaz before they fought 10 years (a grudge Diaz no doubt still holds in his heart along with all the rest): They've all temporarily tossed away their bland lifestyle tweets (not to mention their caution) to rally to the side of a man who has made a life out of alienating his fellow fighters, cultivating a hardline us-versus-them mentality directed at anyone not on his team, and shunning their community.

And it doesn't stop there. Yesterday, women's bantamweight champion, and the UFC's biggest star, Ronda Rousey declared her disdain for the NSAC's decision while at a UFC press conference, generally not considered the time or place for talking out of school. Pressed by reporters, Rousey said, "It's so unfair if one person tests for steroids that could actually really hurt a person and the other person smokes a plant that makes them happy and he gets suspended for five years, whereas the guy that could hurt someone gets a slap on the wrist. It's not fair. It's not fair at all. … I think they really should free Nick Diaz." That's the UFC's banner carrier, MMA's shining star, tearing into the institutions of the sport she represents in the name of a fighter who has made it his life's work to flout the rules of those institutions. And just a few moments ago, UFC rookie and Rousey's fellow Olympian Henry Cejudo announced in a letter to MMAFighting.com that in light of the Diaz decision he refuses to fight in Nevada. Refuses to fight in Nevada? What is going on? Listen closely and you can almost hear the ground starting to shift, and for longtime MMA fans it's bizarre to think of Diaz going from being a lightning rod to a rallying cry.

In the end could it be Nick Diaz—the brash, solitary enigma who wears his social anxiety and disdain on his sleeve­—who ends up unifying fighters? Read fighters' tweets these last few days and you get the real sense that they feel the bell isn't just ringing for Diaz, that the Diaz scandal has made them realize at last that being governed by athletic commissions looking to make examples out of individuals for what one NSAC commissioner called a "lack of cooperation to make the sport better" is a form of solitary and collective suicide, a great way to go down one by one.

Surely they must see the signs. Not two weeks ago Tom Brady had his Deflategate suspension overturned by a federal judge because he had the NFL Players Association on his side. The lifting of Brady's four-game suspension was one of the biggest legal losses in the NFL's 95-year existence and a legal rarity in the history of collective bargaining disputes. Who, though, do mixed martial artists have? If they're lucky they've made enough money to secure a decent lawyer, but if they're not, they're essentially on their own, at the mercy of arbitrary commissioners empowered to decide their fate. By suspending Nick Diaz for an exorbitant amount of time for what boils down to a meaningless act, the NSAC may have done what the fledgling Mixed Martial Arts Fighters Association and the Teamsters and the Nevada Culinary Union have so far failed to do: convince MMA fighters that they are actually a community, whether they like it or not, and that without collective action they're sitting ducks for institutions like the NSAC, waiting to be picked off one at a time.