Did Diaz’s boxing ploy work? MMA star backs out of Lacy fight

Nick Diaz is passing on all that boxing money to focus on his MMA career.

What does that mean? Diaz wasn't getting any more money to fight Jeff Lacy (reportedly 175-200k) than he currently makes in MMA. Now he could be on his way to the Octagon for a fight against UFC welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre.

Diaz's boxing promoter Don Chargin confirmed the cancellation of the Lacy fight in a release:

Team Diaz had contemplated transitioning over to the boxing world in a legitimate attempt to pursue a high-level boxing career. These discussions began in 2009 with long-time boxing promoter, Don Chargin and proceeded up until recent times.

Never before in the history of both sports had a pound-for-pound MMA combatant in his prime had the desire or been contractually free to attempt to transition over to boxing.
The landscape of Mixed-Martial Arts moves at a rapid pace and while Diaz's chance to make history, becoming the first true cross-over MMA star to enter the boxing ring, an opportunity arose for Nick to make a different sort of history in his primary field of fighting.

Don Chargin states, "Nick is a good kid and a very exciting fighter. Right now he has an opportunity of a lifetime as it pertains to his MMA career. While I don't doubt that Nick and his team were serious about taking the big step into boxing, it only makes sense for him to finish what he started and see how far he can go in MMA before he does anything in boxing. It's all about timing... we began these discussions over two years ago and nobody would have imagined the type of demand that there currently is for Nick as a mixed martial artist."

UFC president Dana White told MMAjunkie that a Diaz move to the UFC is far from set in stone.

"We will see," White told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "There are still a lot of hurdles."

Diaz's manager Cesar Gracie denied that the boxing match was booked to gain leverage.

"There are some people that have said we were just posturing to go into professional boxing and they don't understand that this thing is something we had been working on since 2009. �It wasn't just out of nowhere but at this point in time, there's a certain chance that comes along once in a very long while and it only makes sense to stick to MMA as of right now," Gracie said. "Nick's been working really hard to get to this point in his MMA career and it wouldn't make sense for us to make that transition into boxing right now. If this were a couple months ago or if certain fights had played out differently, we'd definitely be ready to go into boxing, but that's not how it played out. �Don Chargin is a great boxing promoter and he understood our dilemma completely and I thank him for that."

The Strikeforce 170-pound champion, Diaz hasn't lost since 2007. He's won 10 straight with nine coming by stoppage.

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