Nick Diaz has a problem and it is serious. We can all sit behind our keyboards and call him a bum, unprofessional, scared, whatever. It's none of those things. He has severe anxiety issues, crippling even, and it is getting worse, as anxiety issues do if they are left unchecked. I'm not licensed but I have done plenty of research and have dealt with anxiety both personally and with others in my life, some of them who can reach Nick's level of crippling anxiety. After the jump let's dig in a little further. What is Social Anxiety?

Social anxiety is the fear of social situations and the interaction with other people that can automatically bring on feelings of self-consciousness, judgment, evaluation, and inferiority.

Put another way, social anxiety is the fear and anxiety of being judged and evaluated negatively by other people, leading to feelings of inadequacy, embarrassment, humiliation, and depression.

If a person usually becomes anxious in social situations, but seems fine when they are alone, then "social anxiety" may be the problem.

Social anxiety disorder (formerly termed "social phobia") is a much more common problem than past estimates have led us to believe.  Millions of people all over the world suffer from this devastating and traumatic problem every day, either from a specific social anxiety or from a more generalized social anxiety.

In the United States, epidemiological studies have recently pegged social anxiety disorder as the third largest psychological disorder in the country, after depression and alcoholism.  It is estimated that 7-8% of the population suffers from some form of social anxiety at the present time.  The lifetime prevalence rate for developing social anxiety disorder is 13-14%.

 

As the description of the disorder details, social anxiety is not uncommon. Anxiety in general is not uncommon and in fact is not a bad thing, if handled properly, it can help give you an edge. However, when the anxiety is allowed to take over your life, everything changes and reality becomes skewed. Look at this part of the definition:

Put another way, social anxiety is the fear and anxiety of being judged and evaluated negatively by other people, leading to feelings of inadequacy, embarrassment, humiliation, and depression.

Now, watch this interview with Nick after probably the biggest win of his career:

Strikeforce: Nick Diaz Thinks He Will Get Suspended After Paul Daley Win (via ArielHelwani)

Here is Nick, in what should be a moment of pure jubilation, and instead he is going on and on about being judged unfairly, being mistreated, etc. I am not breaking any new news here. I think we can all agree that Nick suffers greatly from these anxiety issues and we all know about it. We know he becomes incredibly uncomfortable and perhaps even terrified during these kind of press sessions. Dana, during the press conference, even said to those in attendance "Are you surprised Nick would do this?" He clearly wasn't. Disappointed, yes. Surprised, no. And that is my real problem with the overreaction from Dana and the Zuffa brass. You know what you are buying into when you put Diaz on your card, in the main event. He's going to be flaky, he is going to be anxious, he might not even show up to a press conference two moths before the fight, but on Fight Night he is going to show up and put on a hell of a show. It's like buying a Pinto and then being upset when the gas tank explodes.

I believe that Nick did behave unprofessionally by not showing for these pressers. It is legitimate to question whether he deserves to be in the Main Event against the #1a fighter in the world if he can't take the pressure that leads up to the fight. That question should have been asked and answered before they signed this main event. If this was something new, if this was some act of defiance from Nick, I would understand Dana's decision to replace him. That is not the case here, remotely. Nick is not well, and Dana knew it. He knew it when he let him go and he knew it when he signed him again to face GSP. We are all let down by this and it is not fair to just blame Nick and call him a bum when he has serious issues that his employer was clearly aware of and was willing to promote the fight right up to the day tickets were being sold. As a fan, I am not happy with anyone involved in this situation. But, pulling Nick out of the fight for missing a press conference two months before the fight, to me, was a harsh overreaction. Especially knowing what we know, we all know, including Dana.