Several days removed from his controversial hearing in front of the Nevada Athletic Commission, Nick Diaz remains one of the main topics of discussion within the MMA community. Few have come to the defense of the commission, while most openly admit that Diaz's suspension was entirely excessive, even if they considered him guilty of a third offence.
Nevertheless, the commission's erroneous hearing was mainly a topic of discussion because of their willingness to end a fighter's career by going beyond their own guidelines to sentence him to a harsher suspension.
The commission's decision to hand Diaz a five-year suspension (was originally discussed as a lifetime ban) is one that confused a fair amount of people, including former UFC fighter Frank Trigg.
"Every drug that's illegal has a certain tier; tier one, tier two, tier three," Trigg told Submission Radio. "And in each one within those tiers has a first offence, second offence, third offence. Like, what happens when you get caught for the third time? Well my understanding was that the concept they approved was a 36 month suspension and up to 75% of your purse for a third offence of marijuana. Well 36 months is three years. It's not five years. So where did we come up with these other extra two years?
"Why are they punishing him even more? It's like if you go to prison for an offence and the traffic ticket - you know, not prison - but the traffic ticket is up to $400 or $500 dollar fine and two points on your license. The judge can't go 'oh I'm gonna give you 12 points. I'm gonna charge you 800 dollars'. They can't do all that. So I don't know what they're going to do. I don't understand how it works out at all. So I'm really confused by it."
According to Trigg, the commission could have been flexing their muscles in front of a live feed to show the world their might.
"If you watch these commission hearings - the other thing that's kind of strange to me, is now everyone is getting dolled up, is getting made up. Everyone is getting put together to watch these things happen. Like everyone now, if you look at the commission table, the commissioners, they're all in full make up and the iron-pressed shirts. And before when you go to these things, the guys looked like they just rolled out of bed. So now, even the commissioners are getting in on the fact that like 'hey we're on TV, we're making big noise'. So I'm wondering - remember
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