Shake on it: UFC’s Diaz won’t let Cerrone in his ‘comfort zone’

Diaz wanted no part of the gesture and plans to settle his differences with Cerrone at UFC 141 at the MGM Grand Garden on Friday night.

It’s the type of conflict that often is trumped up to hype fights, but Diaz says he isn’t the type to participate in such exercises.

He says what would seem to most to be an innocent gesture was part of what he sees as a growing problem in mixed martial arts.

Everyone wants to be buddies.

“With a lot of these guys, there’s like this jock (mentality) going on. They all try to be friends, and they feel comfortable being friends with everybody,” Diaz said. “I’m not going to let them get the satisfaction of coming in my comfort zone. I’ve got to keep them outside. I don’t need them trying to figure me out.”

The 26-year-old Diaz is notoriously temperamental and is among the most polarizing fighters in MMA. He also is talented and coming off perhaps his best performance to date in dismantling Takanori Gomi in September. The win snapped a two-fight losing streak and came in his first fight back at lightweight after a stretch in the welterweight division.

He and his brother Nick, along with their teammates in the “Skrap Pack,” are loyal to a fault to their inner circle and skeptical of most outsiders.

They were central figures in the infamous brawl following a Strikeforce event on CBS in 2010.

The proud native of Stockton, Calif., says the “jock culture” permeating the sport stems from too many wrestlers getting involved. Too many guys are pulling pranks on each other and goofing around. He prefers a purer form of fighting.

Diaz says one of the reasons fighters have tried to be friendly with him is to humanize him as a means to soothe the fears they might have stepping into the cage against someone who might be a little out of his mind.

“Let’s just say for a second you’re fighting some maniac in the street who has killed 20 people, and crazy as hell, but you get a fair fight with him, and he’s like biting his arm off and talking crazy (expletive),” Diaz said. “And then you’re going to fight some nice guy who goes to church and comes up and shakes your hand and says, ‘Nice to meet you,’ and ‘Hey, it’s going to be a good fight.’

“Who are you going to feel more comfortable fighting? They’re trying to put me in a comfort zone. They’re trying to make it so they can sleep better at night.”

For his part, the 28-year-old Cerrone insists there were no mind games going on when he decided to shake hands with a fellow fighter on that late October day at “The Ultimate Fighter” gym in Las Vegas.

Diaz was talking to Cerrone’s close friend, fellow UFC fighter Leonard Garcia, at the time and says Diaz slapped his hand away before walking off. The two had not been scheduled to fight, but Cerrone was offered this bout three days later in the locker room after defeating Dennis Siver on Nov. 29 at Mandalay Bay.

“He is the guy that punks everybody else and gets in everyone else’s head, so now what happened? The tables turned, and now I’m in your head, you little (expletive),” Cerrone said of what he considers Diaz’s delusions. “It feels good to turn the tables, to think that he came out hard and wanted to be a bully and now I’m bullying him.

“I saw him at the workouts (Tuesday) watching me instead of worrying about what he was doing. He started mumbling and looking around. Good. Sleep on that.”

The action almost got started at Wednesday’s news conference in the lobby of the MGM Grand when Diaz responded to Cerrone’s trash talk by flipping the cowboy hat off his head.

Don’t expect any handshakes after Friday’s fight, either.

Contact reporter Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5509. Follow him on Twitter: @adamhilllvrj.