Reading List: Nick Diaz and the failures of the NSAC

Nick Diaz was handed a five-year suspension for marijuana use, likely ending his career.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission's decision to throw an entire library of books at Diaz on Monday was unprecedented. A bizarre conclusion that some claim borderlined vendetta, especially considering the urine sample that sunk Stockton's favorite son was an outlier, and two other samples handled by a WADA accredited lab came back under the allowable threshold of marijuana metabolites.

It appears the NSAC simply doesn't like Diaz, and, embarrassingly, they somehow saw his multiple marijuana offenses and unwillingness to play their game as more destructive to the sport than steroid use (Anderson Silva flunked a post-fight drug test after UFC 183, too, only he was handed a year-long suspension for steroid use).

Of course, the internet exploded with excellent takes on the developing situation from writers and fighters alike.

Read a sampling of the best below:

Fellow UFC fighter Josh Samman described his personal connection with Diaz over at BloodyElbow.com, painting a portrait of a kind, misunderstood man who was railroaded by the NSAC.

Diaz may have his detractors, and many of his critics may have valid points, but after today, I argue that anyone who can’t level, who can't sympathize at least a bit, is lacking heavily in the human element. There are facets of Nick Diaz in all of us, whether we like it or not. Especially those of us in this sport, we all feel the need to prove something. We just go about it in different ways.

Following the NSAC decision, Diaz told MMAFighting.com's Ariel Helwani a devastating story about how a girlfriend's suicide drove him to succeed as a professional fighter.

It was all over. I wasn't a kid anymore. I won my first fight in the first round with a choke and all I could think about was her, just like when I was in school.

I would run seven miles and back to her grave just to promise her I would make it as a fighter like she knew and had told me she knew and was proud of me.

Also over at MMAFighting.com, Chuck Mindenhall called the Diaz suspension a travesty.

The NAC was angry because he didn't play ball in the slightest, especially in conjunction with it being a third offense. It wanted to be lied to, and to point out it didn’t appreciate being lied to. It wanted theatrics. It didn’t want to be told "Fifth Amendment." But the Fifth Amendment is so Diaz. He's not one for selling wolf tickets. He doesn't like authority telling him what to do. He exercised his constitutional rights with the same hard-headedness that he smoked pot before a fight. Regulation, it turns out, just isn't his thing.

Fighting is.

Sherdog.com's Greg Savage continued the onslaught against the commission.

I have called the NAC the Keystone Cops of regulators and derided their proceedings as a Kangaroo Court for quite some time now, but honestly that is too good for them. They are nothing more than a shambolic group of self-important people appointed by the Good Old Boy's network in Nevada, who care more about fighters showing deference to them even if it is nothing more than a dog and pony show than they do about real regulation.