Good ol’ Nate Diaz. Just a regular dude!

Y’see, Pat Healy got Submission of the Night at UFC 159 but had his $65,000 bonus forfeited to Bryan Caraway, the only other guy with a submission victory that night, when Healy tested positive for marijuana. If you’re wondering what part of that makes Bryan Caraway a fag, here’s his manager Mike Kogan to helpfully explain that when Diaz said “fag,” he didn’t mean “homosexual,” he meant “person who is weak and worthless.” Not like when straight people think gay people are weak and worthless and call them fags to deride them.

Like when we’re trying to deride women.

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Last week, we got a ridiculous amount of backlash for sharing the story of Fallon Fox, the transgender MMA fighter whose fight license is under review in Florida. People who’ve never commented on a With Leather story (or haven’t commented in years) showed up to anonymous type some hateful shit into a comments box and post it, because the most difficult thing to do in the world is be compassionate about something you don’t understand. “I hate this group of people because X” became an opinion, and not something crazy people say when they want to be horrible.

Anyway, the positives of sharing that story outweighed the negative. The sports world (and the sportswriting world, by proxy) need every single one of its important people to stand up and say “hey, stop it.” Today we got a big one, thanks to UFC’s Rashad Evans, via his outstanding statement on OutSports. He spoke candidly — and, most importantly, like a f**king grown-up — about same-sex marriage and gay rights. Here’s a sample:

“I’ve never been a homophobe, never understood what that is all about. I knew some people who were gay and never cared about their sexuality. But at the same time, I didn’t fully understand the issues around gay people until my friend BA started telling me about his full public support for gay marriage. We talked about the issue and I decided its not enough to not be against a minority, if you want things to go better for them you have to speak up with them.

“I’m a UFC fighter, a macho-type sport. I am a heterosexual guy in a tough macho sport, which is exactly the reason I feel a duty to say I support gay marriage and gay rights.

I can’t even begin to tell you how much this makes me like Rashad Evans. It’s strange that comments like these still seem refreshing, but they are, and I encourage you to read a few more quotes after the jump, high-five OutSports for sharing them with the world, and support Evans in everything he does. Even if he tries to fight Bones again.

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Well hello again, precious internet darlings! Just a few words before we dive into the column this week.

• I’m going to warn everyone here and now that there is a tl;dr soapbox diatribe buried in the report. I don’t plan on doing something this lengthy on the subject again, but I feel that With Leather has a wonderful community of intelligent readers, and if anyone can have an open and honest dialogue about things we should and should not accept when it comes to professional wrestling, it’s you.

• Last week’s column got an overwhelmingly positive response, and I can’t thank you guys enough for the comments and support. It means more than I can say, and I hope we can keep this going. I’m having a heck of a lot of fun writing about the most un-fun wrestling show on television, and you guys are a big part of that.

• Be sure to like us on Facebook, comment at will, share with all of your friends, and send all of your appreciative telegraphs to UPROXX so we can continue in the new year. You can follow me on the twitters here, and follow With Leather for all of your comedy sports and mascot-related needs here.

This week on Impact, Kazarian and Christopher Daniels give us the best Christmas present we could ask for, Jeff Hardy makes some memories, and I give Taz the worst I promised myself I would never take the time to write. Round 2, FIGHT! Doodoo doodoo doodoo doodoo doo doo doo!

"ALL RIGHT WHITE POWER WOOO"

I’m not an expert on soccer, and I’m certainly no authority on civil rights, but if I’ve learned one thing from being on the Internet for 15 years, it’s that anything prefaced with, “I’m not racist, but,” is about to get really racist.

Case in point: A supporters group for Russian Premier League team FC Zenit St. Petersburg have responded to the signing of Brazilian striker ‘Hulk’ with a carefully-worded thing about how people with brown skin hurt their national identity. If that sounds shifty to you, don’t worry: they aren’t racists. They say so right at the beginning!

“We’re not racists but we see the absence of black players at Zenit as an important tradition,” Zenit fan club Landscrona said in a letter, called the “Selection 12 manifesto”, posted on its website (www.landscrona.ru) on Monday.

“It would allow Zenit to maintain the national identity of the club, which is the symbol of St Petersburg.” [...]

“We only want players from other brotherly Slav nations, such as Ukraine and Belarus as well as from the Baltic states and Scandinavia. We have the same mentality and historical and cultural background as these nations,” the letter said.

I’m pretty sure a team’s fans issuing weird statements like this does more to hurt your national identity than a guy having slightly darker skin than his teammates, but what do I know?

As an added bonus, the group made sure to (randomly) include a little aside at the end about how gay people don’t try hard enough to get good at soccer. I’m not sure whether they hurt or help the symbolized national identity of St. Pete. This is also the biggest “everyone in soccer is gay” lay-up joke in Internet history, if you enjoy those.

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Naturally, we’ve been very happy about the rise of Ronda Rousey and what it means to the future of women in UFC and just Mixed Martial Arts competition in general. But as much fun as it has been to talk about the successful, charismatic and, well, attractive Rousey, I’ve regrettably ignored what is an equally important – or maybe even arguably more important – story in Rousey’s opponent, Liz Carmouche, becoming the first openly gay fighter in UFC history.

The move is a nice one for UFC President Dana White, who famously dropped an F-Bomb (f*ggot, not f*ck) in an interview several years ago, as he can now boast of the UFC’s universal inclusiveness with both women and homosexuals all in one fell swoop. PR stunts aside, though, it’s just good for everyone, as long as it’s not the only thing that defines Carmouche. I’m sure she’d like to be known as a UFC champion, in addition to being a champion for equality.

In the meantime, her presence is a win-win for everyone involved, as the UFC takes a step forward in fighting the stigma of White’s mistake, while Carmouche goes into her championship match at UFC 157 on Feb. 26 against Rousey with not only female MMA fans supporting her, but also gay MMA fans, and that’s something that means a lot to her.

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Recently, CBS Sports analyst and GREAT DAD Seth Davis came under fire when he said he wouldn’t want his kids watching mixed martial arts because (and I’m paraphrasing here) two men are near each other and that means gay. From his Twitter:

“Looking on news sites showing picture of two muscular bloody men in homoerotic fighting pose….Sorry, I’ll never get this UFC thing.”

“Maybe I’m a prude on this but I’m also a dad. I don’t mind my sons watching boxing, but I wouldn’t want them watching a UFC bout.”

Davis quickly realized that he wanted to keep his job his mistake and apologized for the offending tweets, but the always progressive UFC was reading, and took it to heart.

Since Seth Davis’ Gay Kids-Gate, UFC President Dana White has worked tirelessly to clear up any worries about homoeroticism in man-on-man combat, making sure all fighters wear full, baggy bodysuits and only touch each other with fully extended arms and legs. He’s also named Corn Nuts the “official nut sack” of Ultimate Fighting and makes sure the announcer tells everybody about their nut sacks before a fight. Okay, one of those two sentences is true. Corn Nuts! They’re corn, all the way to the core. THE CORE OF YOU.

I hope Mr. Davis enjoyed this clip. More importantly, I hope Mr. Davis enjoys the great taste of Corn Nuts.

[h/t to Cage Potato]