Daniel Cormier defends Nate Diaz: ‘When you play the game, you get some pretty s—y prizes

The former double champ may not approve of Nate Diaz’s recent New Orleans brawl but does think it’s understandable given the circumstances and today’s content culture.

Nate Diaz isn’t supposed to fight until August 5th when he takes on Jake Paul in his big boxing debut. But that didn’t stop the Stockton slapper from getting drawn into a street fight in New Orleans over the past weekend. According to Daniel Cormier, that’s just what happens when stupid people test the wrong guy.

Diaz was caught on camera putting Logan Paul impersonator Rodney Peterson in a choke hold and dropping him unconscious onto the sidewalk. Peterson’s head bounced off the pavement like a basketball, but fortunately didn’t suffer anything worse than a bloody scalp. “DC” says he was lucky it didn’t go worse for him.

“I’ve been a little peeved, especially with the news that a warrant has been put out for Nate Diaz,” Cormier said in a new video on his YouTube channel. “And also the guy’s trying to sue him.”

While Cormier admitted that pro fighters scrapping in the streets was a sensitive subject, he said it’s just the end result of internet influencers trying to build clout off dangerous individuals.

“Where in the world do you take a guy that’s known for being dangerous and you choose that guy as the guy you have an altercation with?” Cormier asked. “Especially when the guy in Nate Diaz has a history of defending himself whether it be in the streets, in an MMA fight, in a boxing match which he’s going to have with Jake Paul down the line, or in any situation.”

“Nate Diaz doesn’t say to himself ‘I can’t do this right now due to the fact that it might escalate.’ He almost embraces escalating, that’s why at the fights you saw him throw that water bottle or whatever he threw at that guy that started this ruckus.”

Cormier is referring to former football player and influencer turned celebrity boxer Chase DeMoor. Diaz threw a bottle at him during a Misfits Boxing event earlier in the evening, and in one of the brawl videos DeMoor can be seen street fighting with members of Diaz’s entourage. There are reports that Rodney Peterson was part of DeMoor’s group.

“All these creators, everyone’s creating content as I’m creating content now,” Cormier said. “Everyone’s creating content, everyone wants to be famous. But I don’t know if being famous while challenging someone as dangerous is the way to get it done because what do you expect to happen?”

“When you pick a fight with Nate Diaz, he’s going to fight you wherever you are. You pick a fight with ‘Gamebred’ Masvidal, he will fight you wherever you are. There are a lot of guys in this game that will fight you. So when you play the game you get some pretty s—y prizes.”

“So when the kid [Peterson] gets choked out, reality is it could have been much worse,” he concluded. “Nate choking him was almost doing him a favor because you don’t even feel that, you literally just go to sleep. It could have been much worse for that kid … When you go in at a man and you have that posture where you’re big and you’re threatening, when can you expect that man to defend himself?”

Diaz and the Louisiana court system will apparently figure out where that line sits as a second-degree battery case moves forward through the system. Nate’s lawyer has already proclaimed his client’s innocence.