BAD SPORTS

UFC Suspends Nate Diaz For Anti-Gay Tweet, His Manager Defends Him

NateDiaz_HeadshotIt seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. Just hours after Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight Nate Diaz sent an anti-gay tweet the UFC quickly announced it would suspend the athlete from the mixed martial arts promotion for having violated its code of conduct.

Diaz sent a pair of tweets Thursday in which he expressed sympathy for Pat Healy, who lost $130,000 in bonus money after testing positive for marijuana, and attacked Bryan Caraway, the fighter who scooped up $65,000 of the money.

“I feel bad for Pat Healy that they took a innocent mans money and I think the guy who took the money is the biggest fag in the world,” Diaz wrote.

UFC swiftly condemned the message, suspended him and released a statement that read:

“We are very disappointed by Nate Diaz’s comments, which are in no way reflective of our organization. Nate is currently suspended pending internal investigation and we will provide further comment once the matter has been decided.”

Diaz’s manager Mike Kogan complained about his client’s suspension to website MMAJunkie:

“Guess what? The word f—-t, at least in Northern California, and where Nate is from, means bitch. It means you’re a little punk. It has nothing to do with homosexuals at all. So when Nate made the comment that he made, he didn’t make it in reference to homosexuals or calling Caraway a homosexual. He just said it was a bitch move. I’m sure some people got offended, and hopefully this article will explain what his intent was. But how people view it is how people view it. I can’t control that. His intent was not to make a derogatory term toward homosexuals. He used the word to refer to a punk or a bitch.”

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