Sherdog’s Top 10: Trash Talkers

Nick Diaz is one of MMA’s most unique characters. | Photo: D. Mandel/Sherdog.com

4. Nick Diaz

Even in a sport brimming from top to bottom with characters, there is nobody else quite like Diaz. He is a natural trash talker with a propensity for speaking his mind, and like every other part of his game, his repertoire reflects his unique personality and way of looking at the world.

Diaz’s list of verbal highlights is long and storied. He consistently questioned whether Georges St. Pierre was using performance-enhancing drugs, flipped off Frank Shamrock at a press conference and trashed many of his opponents as “holders” rather than “hitters.” He thinks the cage is a detriment to the properly violent practice of MMA. When Carlos Condit threw a spinning backfist during their fight at UFC 143, he queried, “Oh, we’re throwing spinning s--t now?” The man even laid down in the Octagon during the first round of his fight with Anderson Silva and beckoned him to the canvas.

The Stockton, Calif., native’s trash talking even extends to concepts. His impromptu video while driving his Honda is an all-time classic, as is his rant on the phrasing of the “training camps” concept: “I don’t get why they call it a training camp. There’s no campground. There’s no tents.”

Raw, funny, and as compelling as the man himself, Diaz’s verbal repertoire is one of the pound-for-pound best in MMA.

Number 3 » He treats pre-fight trash talk like an integral part of the process, just as important as pad work and cutting weight, and goes out of his way to dig at anything and everything possible in order to build the profile of the matchup. He is a naturally gifted ball-buster and has honed his craft for more than a decade at the highest level on every platform imaginable.