The strangest feud to come out of UFC 196 had to be the one between Nate Diaz and Justin Bieber. Bieber, a Conor McGregor fan, put up a video on Instagram following the event saying, “No bandwagon but Conor is a true champion, fights with style and finesse, all the respect to Nate but his style is terrible. Nate has crazy heart respect.” No disrespect, he’s just awful. Tons of heart for being awful though. Respect.
Is ‘respect’ some kinda take-back word where you can say whatever you want, and then follow it up with ‘Respect!’ and it makes everything better? If we were to ask Nate Diaz what he thought of that, he might say that kind of talk gets you slapped in the 209. He certainly doesn’t seem impressed with all the celebrities voicing their opinions.
“Bieber don’t watch the sport; he don’t know the sport,” he told Rolling Stone. “I’ve seen a couple other people too, Drake, all these other guys that are stating their opinion. How are you going to state your opinion when you don’t know s**t? You’re just showing your lack of knowledge on the sport.”
“They picked McGregor. The mainstream got him because they know his name more, but if you look at my record and at look at who I am and watch my fights, you know [I was going to win]. Unless you’re caught up in the hype. Those guys all were. Everyone’s got their opinions, but I wouldn’t say something about a basketball player or something like that ’cause I don’t know the sport.”
On one hand, Nate is 100 percent right, people who don’t know shouldn’t criticize. On the other hand, this is what happens when you’re in a major, mainstream fight: a bunch of people who don’t normally follow mixed martial arts get in on things, and they’re going to say all sorts of factually questionable stuff like “Conor is still better!” and “Nate Diaz only won because he was bigger!”
Don’t expect any of it to come from some deep fount of combat sports knowledge. It’s just people popping off on sports, and should be dismissed as such. If Bieber wants to big up Conor McGregor, more power to him. But saying Nate’s style is terrible when it’s objectively friggin’ awesome? That’s when you get called out.
While we’re on the subject of the Biebs and Diaz, here’s a video from EA Sports UFC 2 of them fighting. I feel like it’s pretty damn accurate, given what we know of Nate’s terrible style.
(Via Rolling Stone)
