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High Times Magazine has a great in-depth interview with Nick Diaz, who has somewhat unwillingly become the posterboy for marijuana in mixed martial arts. A lot of fighters smoke the ganja, but it’s Nick’s history of repeated drug test failures and rambling interviews that have really cemented people’s perceptions of him as a stereotypical pothead.

Of course, there’s way more to Nick than just smoking pot. The guy is a phenomenal athlete who does ironman triathlons on his weekends off from training for fights. His boxing is so good that he’s basically stopped using his jiu jitsu, which is too bad because he’s phenomenal at that too. But yeah, weed does play into his everyday life. Here’s what he told High Times about his habit:

If I’m at home and I’m training — doing my same things every day — then I’m definitely going to want to use cannabis. It’s gonna help. I’m trying to stay focused on what I’m doing. I don’t want a whole lot of things going on—people to call back, or text messages or whatever. I chill out, relax a little bit, and then I don’t have those issues. If I’m going to train all day, when I get done, I’m gonna want to smoke. If I have to go and train all day, before I go, I’m gonna want to smoke. If I wake up in the morning and feel beat to sh*t, and it’s going to take me forever to wake up, I smoke some weed and I wake right up. Then I have breakfast and I go do a workout.

If he’s trying to wake up, he’s gonna wanna smoke. If he’s trying to get to bed, he’s gonna wanna smoke. Pre-training? Smoking could definitely help. Post-training … the perfect time to smoke!

Nick actually has a medical marijuana card stating marijuana helps him with his ADHD, not that it helped him at all when he got busted by the Nevada State Athletic Commission three times for elevated THC levels. That ADHD caused him all sorts of problems in his early years as well:

My parents moved around Stockton and Lodi. I had a lot of anxiety about jumping into another classroom. They were always putting me in special ed. But I was smart; I wasn’t like these kids in the special-ed classes. But it would make me feel a little bit stupid. Then I’d go back into the smart-kids class the rest of the day, and they’re like: “Hey, you know you’re in the retarded class?”

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Some other fun tidbits from the interview:

He started training at the age of 16, taking classes at the original Lion’s Den run by Ken Shamrock.

He says he’s making over 500k a fight and has made over a million bucks on some.

He used to be a massive Jean Claude Van Damme fan and could do the splits like his idol.

Ronda Rousey was actually living at Nick’s house for a while when they used to train together.

He says the second he makes less money than his last fight is the second he quits the sport.

Nick’s latest marijuana suspension was amended from a lifetime ban to 18 months, meaning he’ll be able to fight again in July. Considering a big part of that lighter suspension was due to intense fan pressure, it seems like the bad boy of MMA is only getting more popular.

(via High Times)