The great N.Y. Times sportswriter John Branch profiles UFC fighter Nate Diaz:
“U.F.C. brands itself as the counterculture edge of the sports world: brash, bloody and unscripted. But as mixed martial arts have bulled into the mainstream, Diaz remains a reliable mutineer. He is the pot-smoking, straight-talking, Stockton-representing renegade who, at the top of his career, had the gall to essentially disappear for three years.
“Diaz stands out in a tent of circus performers by doing nothing but being himself. That much was on display when he strolled into his open workout on Wednesday smoking a CBD joint from his own cannabis business, and proceeded to pass more out to fans. He had planned to stop smoking marijuana a couple of weeks before his fight against Anthony Pettis on Saturday at U.F.C. 241 in Anaheim, because the compound in weed that causes psychoactive effects, THC, remains a banned substance for which fighters are tested.
