Promoter: Diaz Will Wait on Boxing, Focus on MMA Career

---

Despite much bluster and multiple rumored opponents, it appears Strikeforce welterweight champion Nick Diaz will not be returning to the boxing ring anytime soon.

Diaz’s boxing promoter, Don Chargin, issued a press release Monday which noted that it is in the “best interest” of the 27-year-old Stockton, Calif., native to “focus on his primary combat sport and profession” -- MMA.

“Nick is a good kid and a very exciting fighter,” Chargin stated. “Right now, he has an opportunity of a lifetime as it pertains to his MMA career. While I don’t doubt that Nick and his team were serious about taking the big step into boxing, it only makes sense for him to finish what he started and see how far he can go in MMA before he does anything in boxing.”

Chargin, who has promoted boxing shows since the 1950s, asserted that discussions for Diaz to switch to the Sweet Science began over two years ago, before the fighter’s star turn in Strikeforce. Diaz’s trainer and manager, Cesar Gracie, also noted that recent rumors of bouts with former boxing titlists Jeff Lacy and Fernando Vargas were no mere promotional stunts.

“There are some people that have said we were just posturing to go into professional boxing and they don’t understand that this thing is something we had been working on since 2009,” stated Gracie of his charge, who has one pro-boxing bout -- an April 2005 four-round decision win over Alfonso Rocha -- to his name. “It wasn’t just out of nowhere, but at this point in time, there’s a certain chance that comes along once in a very long while and it only makes sense to stick to MMA as of right now.”

Many fight fans and pundits believe the “chance” to which Gracie refers is a potential title unification bout with UFC welterweight ruler Georges St. Pierre. However, according to a Monday report from MMAJunkie.com, UFC President Dana White says there are “still a lot of hurdles” to be cleared before such a bout could take place. White reportedly met with Diaz in Las Vegas last week, reigniting rumors of the 170-pound super-fight.