Nate Diaz rattled Fox broadcast

During his middle finger episode fox cameramen were told to show the crowd to avoid fines from  the Federal Communications Commission

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/nate-diaz-middle-finger-gesture-during-fight-rattled-161511051--mma.html

During Benson Henderson's win over Nate Diaz at UFC on Fox 5, the Fox broadcast repeatedly cut away to a shot of the empty octagon. Was it a technical difficulty? Did someone on Fox's broadcast truck hit the wrong button?

No. Diaz threw up the middle finger at his opponent, and the network cut away instead of risking a fine from the Federal Communications Commission.

This isn't the first time Diaz has caused a stir on network television. After a Strikeforce fight in 2010 on CBS, Diaz, his brother Nick and their teammates got into a postfight melee when Jason "Mayhem" Miller jumped into the cage after a Jake Shields win.

Diaz is known for using trash talk and throwing up the middle finger during fights. He famously locked in a triangle choke with his legs on Kurt Pellegrino and put up both fingers as he finished the submission. Henderson knew this and prepared for Diaz's game.

"It's something I actually had a little bit of a hard time with, but once my training partners got together, they all started talking crap to me in the middle of sparring and I'd get angry," Henderson said on Fuel TV's postfight show. "They helped control it and I did a pretty good job of being very focused and not letting that affect my emotional state in the middle of the fight."

You are all, minus DieLegende, acting like this is the first time Nate has done this.  Maybe you have all forgot when he gave Pellegrino the finger while having him locked in a triangle. Or maybe the Nate-Cerrone fight where the fingers were flying often and early.  Not a single one of you that is *****ing about this incident said **** concerning the previous incidents.  So get off your high horse and chill the **** out!!!

If FOX gave Glen Beck and Bill O'Riley their own show, then a little middle finger would be the least of their worries. And plus what do they expect, it is a Diaz Brother after all.

What a piss poor performance by nate, should've at least put up a fight. Im sure donald cerrone would have done better.

I think that everyone, and I mean everyone is making way too big a deal out of this. Networks will allow words like ass, *****, bastard, crap, and damn because those are soft curse words, but holy ****, we can't allow the middle finger to be seen on TV? Give me a ******* break.

As far as people hating on Nate Diaz and saying he was throwing a temper-tantrum, all I have to say is...............Really? That's what you honestly believe? Nate Diaz throws the middle finger up at his opponent almost every single fight whether he's getting his ass kicked or not. It's just something that he does to get or try to get his opponent out of his fight rhythm. Sometimes it works and pays dividends, while others it doesn't.

As far as Diaz's overall performance goes...........ok let's see here...........almost every fight he has lost has been becasue of being unable to stop takedowns by big, strong wrestlers. You would think that would've been the main focus of training coming into this fight against Ben Henderson, but no he just flips the bird, and tries to rely on his BJJ and boxing to get him out of bad situations, and once again against a great wrestler, he failed to stop takedowns, and allowed himself to lose by decision.

I think maybe some of you are mis-understanding me.  I said it was poor sportsmanship, but never agreed that it should have been censored... go check the 1st page... I think that is two separate topics.  FOX chose to censor it and it is what it is.

Funny what people on TV censor, and what they show. Fox is ok with censoring Nate throwing a middle finger, but is ok with shows that cuss, and use many other types of profanity.

I think it was the way the finger was used on TV. If it had been a show or a tv movie im sure they would have let it slide. But fox doesnt want to promote the ufc fighters as thugs just fighting in a human ****fight like so many uneducated people seem to think it is. The finger makes the fighters look less like professional athletes. Cause professional athletes just dont act like that. Ive never seen a boxer take off his gloves at the end of a fight and flip the bird. Ive never seen a football player get hit hard and start flipping off the defense, ive never seen a basketball player get a fouled really hard or a hockey player get checked to hard or high sticked and drop his gloves just to give the finger. Like people have said, fox has let words like *****, **** and some other light curse words slip, but when it comes to a sporting event thats trying to gain legitamacy among people that arent huge fans already fox just wont stand for anything that might damage mma. And can you really blame them?

It's just not that big of a deal period.

"But fox doesnt want to promote the ufc fighters as thugs just fighting in a human ****fight like so many uneducated people seem to think it is"

Even if you're right, that doesn't mean you can hide that some fighter are in fact thugs ... Just like in any sports, you have the athletes and you have the thugs ... Would they censor Ron Artest's elbow on Harden? No. Is it a thug move? yes. Does it mean all NBA fighters are thugs? No. Are there quite a few thugs in the NBA? Yes.

I know that fighting isn't perceived like basketball and I know where you're coming from with the uneducated audience thing, but in order to educate that audience you don't need to hide the thugs, you just need to show MMA and it'll come through by itself even if there are a few thugs in the mix because a great deal of the fighters are actually genuinely nice guys.

Especially as each and every one of the current UFC champions are well spoken professional athletes, so the sport is currently painted in a very bright manner.

Except for Rousey, she's a thug and I love her for it (even though she's young and dumb and says quite a lot of stupid things).
:))))

Sometimes trying to hide little truths turns them into bigger lies. Think about it, them censoring the finger flip ironically drew much more attention to it than if they'd have let it go.

I think that as a network that's going into the fight business, you need to accept that there will be moments (or worse) like this, heck, you're broadcasting fighters not ballet dancers and the reason people will watch (which is why the network started broadcasting MMA) is because they want to watch fighters, so you can't try and change the game too much. A squeaky clean fight game, will eventually get boring and lose viewers.

* Edited at 12.11.2012, 6:56 AM ET *

Not only expected, this kind of Diaz behavior brought in quite a large portion of their ratings ... so you can't complain when it happens, but enjoy the number it brings ...

* Edited at 12.11.2012, 7:17 AM ET *