Estima (photo via On the Mat.com)

By FCF Staff

After Cesar Gracie released a statement attempting to explain why his fighter Nick Diaz failed to show up for his scheduled grappling match with Braulio Estima in Long Beach, Saturday, the accomplished BJJ practitioner has returned fire.

Earlier in the week, Gracie cited several reasons why an apparently angered Diaz did not attend, including his pre-fight condition not to grapple a MMA fighter, and the well documented issues Estima had making weight.

The statement did not include any comments from Diaz himself, who Gracie did criticize for not communicating with his team that he was leaving.

In a statement posted via Twitter, Estima relayed that although he has been training with the Blackzilian Team, he was informed by the World Jiu Jitsu Expo promoter Nalty Junior that it wasn’t an issue because he hasn’t fought in MMA yet.

In terms of the weight cut, Estima claims that he never signed a contract regarding weighing in, and that further:

And since this whole thing was going to be a friendly event I really don’t see any issue here even if Nick turned up 10lbs overweight. Still when asked I went and dropped the weight to meet the requirement. Actually to put things straight it was myself that called Junior around 10pm Friday to check if there is going to be a weigh in at all. He kept contacting you and got back to me saying I need to be 180 that time, of course I said I can’t for the simple reason I was away in Irvine and it was already late at night but I said sure no problem I’ll make it first thing in the morning if needed, even if it would put me in a bigger disadvantage I didnt care I just came to fight. Junior had actually called me back no later than midnight that he spoke to you and confirmed the weigh in for 10am.

Estima went on to ask when Diaz weighed in and criticized Gracie for not communicating that the fighter had apparently left well before the scheduled match.

Leaving me believing we would fight till the very last minute, now youre talking about lack of proffesionalism in the organisation of the superfight and this was very professional behaviour right?

To read the entire statement from Estima, head here.