UFC lightweight Diaz fighting to fix image

ORLANDO, Fla.-While doing interviews on Thursday in advance of his Saturday night fight against Michael Johnson, Nate Diaz looked at the event poster and spotted what he perceived to be an error.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran was nowhere to be found.

So he grabbed a marker and drew himself in as a flexing stick figure with a six-pack of abs.

The hilarious moment showed a much lighter side of Diaz's personality and it probably wasn't an accident. He also spent the majority of his time during open workouts at the Hyatt Regency interacting with fans, cracking several jokes along the way.

Diaz contemplated his image during his year away from the cage and decided to make some changes as he prepares to fight Johnson on the main card of UFC on Fox 17 at Amway Center.

"It seems like I did a lot of thinking while I've been out of the game. I wasn't really out of the game because I've been training like I was getting ready for a fight that could happen any day. But when I sat back and had time to really think, I would see other fighters doing at Q&As and meet and greets and all my exposure has been just fighting like I'm just this war animal that people like to look at and say, 'This guy's this or this guy's that.'

"I realized too over this time that there's all these (expletive) cameras here, I can speak to them a little bit and tell my opinions."

Diaz doesn't believe people have a good opinion of him and hopes to start to turn that around.

"I just don't like being looked at so negatively," he said. "There's a lot of bad media about me and people think I'm argumentative or whatever. I think it's a lot of miscommunication that makes me not look so hot and makes the UFC not look so hot."

The fun and games aren't a usual part of Diaz's fight-week persona. In fact, he got noticeably darker when describing what he feels like while preparing to step in the cage.

"You know in "Gladiator" when they're sitting in the back waiting to go fight and die? That's how I feel (before fights)," he said. "Not to be dramatic or anything, but it's rough. But it's what I'm doing so I guess I have to try to look at the brighter side of things."

Perhaps that feeling of impending doom was at play when a day after his jovial performance at workouts, Diaz was captured on a cell phone camera getting into a skirmish with Johnson at the hotel hours before weigh-ins on Friday.

That's part of how Diaz and his brother Nick have become very popular with their fans. Still, he thinks his negative image could be part of the reason he's not on posters or fighting for titles.

"Conor McGregor's saying the same (expletive) that I've been saying all along. UFC is pushing that. When I say some (expletive) like that, they're like, 'Put him behind the banner,'" he joked. "He says it and they push him. I say it and they hide me. That's what that guy did. He stole the blueprint on what to do. He's doing a good job of it, but they're backing it and hiding me around the corner."

He was also critical of the fighters in the main event, who will be competing for the title in his own weight class.

"I've been here for nine years fighting contenders. Everybody just found out this dude's name," he said pointing at the face of lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos on the poster. "This guy (Donald Cerrone), at least he fights a lot, but look how much he talks about it. He keeps saying, 'I'll fight anybody, that's how I work.' Guess what? I was already doing that. I fought three to five times every year. You remember that? That's what happened, but I didn't talk about it. But he keeps talking about it, so they're pushing him like they do McGregor."

As for McGregor possibly coming up to fight either dos Anjos or Cerrone for the lightweight belt, Diaz yawns at the notion.

"He's going to fight him or him?" he asked, referring back to the poster before making a reference to McGregor berating Cerrone and dos Anjos at a news conference in Las Vegas. "These guys got punked out at that press conference. He already beat them in my opinion. That was a win. If he wants to fight a real fight, he knows where it's at. The money fight is right here."

In the end, Diaz concedes he's also in the position he is because he has lost three of four fights.

"I'm talking all this (expletive)," he said. "But I have to fight this fight and we'll see what happens afterwards."

Contact reporter Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5509. Follow him on Twitter: @adamhilllvrj