When Scott Coker talked to Ariel Helwani last week about Nick Diaz vs Jason Miller, he said the inability to make the fight came down to a 2 pound difference of opinions between camps. Now Nick Diaz is saying it’s less about the pounds and more about the benjamins. Some choice quotes via MMA Junkie:

“I’d be happy to move up,” he said. “It’s just I’d like to get paid for it.”

“I don’t like how people try to say that I didn’t accept the fight with ‘Mayhem’ Miller because I was too small,” he said. “I never said anything about that. I said if I’m going to go off-track and screw with my whole season – it’s going to screw with my whole year. It’s going to screw with my capabilities fighting at 170 pounds. So if I’m going to do that I would like to get paid in full.

“I’ll fight at any weight. I’ll fight at 185 pounds. I’d like to get paid. Pacquiao is making 40 [expletive] million dollars; [Georges St-Pierre] is making a couple of million dollars. I’m over here driving a fucking Honda because my shit is breaking down. Fuck all you motherfuckers!”

According to the official numbers from the CSAC, Diaz made 50k for his most recent fight against KJ Noons. There must be more money than that kicking around the backend of his deal (or Nick and his manager are as dumb as they sometimes look), but I don’t see Strikeforce as the kind of promotion that’s secretly paying all their fighters boatloads of cash.

I imagine Nick’s ‘million dollar’ request is just his standard pothead ADHD way of saying “I would like a fair amount of money given my stature as welterweight champion to move up in weight for a fight of significant magnitude. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, of course.” How much that number is determines if Nick’s the one being unreasonable or if Strikeforce is just being cheap.