NDA Athletic Recovery Coach Jose Garcia claims Cesar Gracie is attempting to sabotage Nick Diaz’s training camp for UFC Abu Dhabi

NDA Athletic Recovery Coach Jose Garcia claims Cesar Gracie is attempting to sabotage Nick Diaz’s training camp for UFC Abu Dhabi.

It was in a recent interview with Submission Radio, that Nick’s former coach weighed in on Diaz’s slated return against Vicente Luque at UFC Abu Dhabi on August 3rd.

“Nick is a tough guy. But it just doesn’t make that much sense to me where Nick is at in his career,” Cesar Gracie said of the Nick Diaz vs. Vicente Luque fight. “It’s not the fight I would have made, and don’t even know what’s going on with that fight, to be honest with you… It’s a toss-up what’s gonna happen. I don’t really see him training with fighters. And I don’t know what’s going on with that fight.”

Gracie continued:

“He’s just not really part of the training with the guys right now. Like, normally right now, he’d be training with Jake Shields. He’d be training with his brother. He would have been sparring. Nick was not there last night, for example, for Nate’s fight… No bad blood or anything whatsoever. It’s just I think that the people that are holding on to Nick right now in Texas want to hold on to Nick. And so, I hope they take good care of him.”

Cesar’s comments clearly did not sit well with NDA Athletic Recovery Coach Jose Garcia / BBJ, who shared a much different opinion on the matter with BJPENN.com.

“Nick Diaz fired Cesar Gracie as trainer and manager back in 2014 or 2015. He then hired Ballengee Group before the (Anderson) Silva fight. Nick of course went into great detail explaining why he split from Cesar.”

According to Garcia, ‘The Stockton General’ attempted to rekindle their relationship and when he did, Gracie quickly pounced on the opportunity to exploit Nick.

“Nick rekindles his communication with Cesar just to be on good terms before leaving for Florida to train and isolate himself from the COVID restriction that was in California. He gets in amazing shape and then Cesar sees the opportunity to slide in and capitalize off of Nick’s last possible fight vs Robbie. Another management team had already secured the Robbie Lawlor fight contract while Nick was in Florida. But Cesar then got involved and found a way to void Nick’s contract so that he could get the contract made in his name. Cesar had nothing to do with getting this fight made, Cesar was under the impression that Nick was still retired. Once he saw that Nick was active, Cesar manipulated his way into Nick’s life so that he could benefit from voiding the current contract so that he could make his own. Cesar’s whole motive was to be on the contract and get paid for Nick’s next fight.”

Jose Garcia then claimed that Cesar Gracie forced Nick Diaz to proceed with the Robbie Lawler fight despite being in bad shape both physically and mentally.

“Nick gets out of shape in California under Cesar’s watch and instead of pulling him out of the fight, Gracie forces Nick to move forward with it. Nick walked into that fight in bad physical and mental shape. So, Cesar makes his money and promises to help Nick with his taxes but proceeds to be nonexistent to help him. Nick basically remained in the exact same IRS situation that he was in going into that fight.”

Nick Diaz and Robbie Lawler at UFC 266

According to Garcia, the exploitation tactics against Nick Diaz are still occurring to date, this with his scheduled Octagon return less than a month away.

“Fast forward to 2024 and Nick’s life is in shambles. His team helped get him out of Vegas and California, and he has once again moved, this time to Texas. Nick gets in great shape negotiates directly with Dana and Hunter by himself. He gets a fight and now Cesar is back. Due to the fact that Cesar is scared to fly and has no control over Nick’s contract with the UFC he is trying to discourage Nick from fighting in Abu Dhabi which once again is causing Nick to be mentally stressed instead of focusing on his fight. You got one side telling Nick to focus on himself and train and fight to make his own money and get himself right and you have Cesar on the other side trying to convince Nick to cancel the fight and take the fight in America where Cesar can have much more control of Nick. Preferably anywhere in California or Vegas so he can make the drive since his scared of flying. This is about controlling Nick in order to get as much money out of him because he feels he’s owed that since the game has grown and the guys make more money now. Note this, Cesar doesn’t make 1 dollar off of Nate and hasn’t made money with Nate for almost 10 years now.”

What do you think of the comments made by Jose Garcia? Do you think we will still see Nick Diaz fight at UFC Abu Dhabi next month?