by Hugh Jasol: In a recent press release, MMA star, Nick Diaz stated that he no longer plans on following through with his rumored fight with former super middleweight world champion, Jeff Lacy. According to the statement, the decision was made because Diaz wants to see “how far he can go in MMA before he does anything in boxing.”

So, Diaz will return to MMA, where he can avoid the embarrassment of being a fish out of water and getting blown away like James Toney did against Randy Couture last year.

Diaz probably realized that his desire to fight the former world champ would only serve as a good way to make publicity, but when the time came to actually fight, a thirty-second KO at the hands of “Left Hook” Lacy would not be a good thing for his reputation.

The MMA star has supposedly had some good boxing training, even going so far as to be aided by Freddie Roach briefly, but there’s no way someone can move right into boxing and handle someone like Lacy. Diaz would’ve had to learn to move like a boxer, react like a boxer, and work around the fact that he won’t have use of fingers to grab, like in the MMA. He would also have to adapt to working with ring ropes instead of a cage. These are skills that it takes a long time to learn and they take a lifetime to master.

If Diaz truly wanted the scrap with Lacy, he could’ve made a compromise. Maybe fight in the cage with one boxing glove, one MMA glove, and maybe allow kicks, but ban take downs. That would’ve been fair to both fighters and it would make sure that the big payday for both fighters could still be realized.

But I don’t think Diaz ever really wanted the fight. He maybe wanted some cheap publicity and made an attempt to get the attention of some boxing fans because, when it came time to put his fists where his mouth was, he went running back to MMA. Now Lacy can focus on fighting some real boxers.