Cesar Gracie open to Nick Diaz vs. "Mayhem" on Jan. 29, catchweight required

By Dan Stupp, www.mmajunkie.com

If trainer Cesar Gracie gets his way, Strikeforce welterweight champion and prized pupil Nick Diaz (23-7 MMA, 4-0 SF) finally will meet Jason "Mayhem" Miller (24-7 MMA, 1-1 SF) in early 2011.

The goal is for the fight to take place at a currently unannounced Jan. 29 Strikeforce event at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif.

But as Gracie told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio) on Monday, the champ won't move up a weight class to get the fight booked.

"I was talking to Strikeforce a little bit about it today," said Gracie, a finalist for "Trainer of the Year" in the 2010 World MMA Awards. "No opponent has been named or anything. But he's going to fight on that date, and hopefully Fedor (Emelianenko) will be part of it too. It could be a really exciting time."

What would make it even more exciting is Diaz vs. Miller. But Gracie said it's still a work in progress.

"That fight just hasn't been offered to us like in an official manner yet," he said. "I know 'Mayhem' goes on his websites and (says) Nick is ducking him and everything.

"It's kind of hard to duck someone when you haven't even been offered the fight. It's just 'Mayhem' talking about that. Until it's been offered, you can't say yes or no."

Gracie said he hadn't talked to Diaz about the fight but will in the next fight days. Besides, it hasn't even really been offered.

But Gracie said if it's a fight Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker wants, they'll take it. But it won't be in Miller's middleweight division.

"If that fight was offered, yeah, we'd probably take that fight," he said. "We'd just have to look at what weight class it's going to be in, and apparently, 'Mayhem' can't make 170. We're not going to accommodate going to 185. It doesn't really make that much sense to call someone out, and the champ has to ... go to your weight class."

Instead, Gracie prefers the fight to take place right in the middle – at 178 pounds, which is within a few pounds of where Diaz previously met Frank Shamrock and Scott Smith in Strikeforce catchweight bouts.

Currently, Diaz is training for marathons and keeping the weight off. And besides, though he's receptive to the bout, Gracie said Miller hasn't accomplished much in his recent bouts and really is in a win-win situation regardless of the outcome of a fight with Diaz, who's riding an eight-fight win streak.

"Being the champ of 'Bully Beatdown' doesn't really make you a contender," said Gracie, referring to Miller's MTV reality show. "It doesn't. If he were beating people that's important, yeah. But the champ doesn't need to move or down in weight because someone says, 'Don't be scared, homie.'"

The Diaz and Miller feud reached a boiling point back in April at the now-infamous "Strikeforce: Nashville" event. After teammate Jake Shields defeated Dan Henderson in the headliner, Miller, who picked up a win earlier in the night, entered the cage to demand a rematch with the then-middleweight champ.

The confrontation didn't go over well with Shields and his teammates, including Diaz, who soon were part of a wild in-cage melee that marred the CBS-televised event.

Diaz and Miller both have barked about a possible fight since then.