The Fight Network is reporting that Nick Diaz will seek the aid of a plastic surgeon to repair the scar tissue on his face. This comes after some very bad cuts forced a stoppage in his last bout with KJ Noons in Elite XC. Diaz has suffered some serious cuts in past fights, and former kickboxer Kit Cope (who cornered Diaz against Noons) said the accumulation of scar tissue is an issue Diaz needs to deal with if he is to continue as a pro fighter.
“He didn’t get hit with anything hard,” Cope said. “It’s just that he’s got some gnarly cuts. There were a couple of fights [in his past] where he got cut and then band aided it, you know … didn’t get any good stitches, so he’s got a lot of scar tissue. You breathe on the guy, and he gets cut.”
But here’s where things get interesting. The miracle-working doctor who will fix Diaz’s problem with scar tissue? Turns out it’s Las Vegas-based plastic surgeon Frank Stile, a friend of Cope’s who trains with the former kickboxing champion in his Las Vegas gym.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know much about plastic surgery beyond the fact that it tends to draw the doctors who want to get rich in a hurry. But is it even possible to make a person less susceptible to cuts when they have a build-up of scar tissue in their face? If so, this is pretty close to a revolution in MMA. Several notable fighters have struggled with this same problem (Pedro Rizzo being perhaps the most well-known example) and it usually only gets worse until it drives them out of the sport entirely.
If this doctor really can reduce Diaz’s scar tissue, that’s great news. Diaz is still young and he has so much talent it would be a shame to see his career ruined by cuts. I just hope that Kit Cope isn’t giving Diaz false hope. It’s not hard to imagine a scene in the dressing room back stage where Cope makes grandiose claims about what his friend the plastic surgeon can do — either to make Diaz feel better or make himself feel important — even if it turns out that the surgery is not as life-altering as he thinks.
Cope also used his post-fight mic time to talk some trash on Noons, claiming that were it not for Diaz’s unfortunate scar tissue, the bout would have ended a different way.
“KJ Noons – Karl – you’re not even in the same league,” Cope said. “You’re luckier than a dog with two peckers.”
First off, dog with two peckers. That’s lucky? I don’t get it. Is he implying that a dog with two peckers (which, presumably, are right next to one another) could have sex with two other dogs at once? I don’t think that would work. The word for that dog isn’t lucky, it’s mutant.
Second, yes, the fight was stopped because of the cuts, but Noons was taking it to Diaz something fierce. He may not have hit him with anything heavy, but he did hit him a lot and Diaz had trouble coming up with an answer for it. To say that Noons isn’t in the same league is just ridiculous. It’s the kind of thing that makes me further question the earlier claims about the plastic surgeon, since they came out of the same guy’s mouth.
Personally, I hope this guy can fix Nick Diaz’s face. But I still have to wonder how well plastic surgery is going to work for a guy who absorbs facial trauma as part of his job description. It seems like if this was such a proven fix, more fighters would be doing it.
And seriously, if this doctor is such a great plastic surgeon, maybe he should do something to help that poor dog with two peckers that Cope keeps talking about. It’s got to be just impossible to play fetch with that poor animal and not stare the entire time.
The Fighting Life 
There’s a doctor named Dr. Jeannie Tsai at Presidio Laser Medicine in San Francisco that does a lot of this stuff with fighters. I know they do a ton of Botox and Restylane for models and stuff, but they also have a lot of pro fighters as clients-including a well known communist.
I’d also be a little concerned about any plastic surgeon who trains at a kickboxing gym. If you were a damn surgeon, would you be punching people and checking kicks with your precious, precious hands?
This reminds me of the guy at Renzo Gracie Academy who said he was a competent plumber. Only instead of some dude’s floor collapsing inward as a result of water damage, imagine Nick Diaz’s face.
Plastic surgery on scar tissue has been done in boxing forever. I question how effective it has been, because I think a lot of the problem with easy to cut fighters is genetic. Nevertheless, your attitude that it must be iffy because you’ve never heard of it is more of a comment on you than anything else.
Wow. Burn on me. But maybe I haven’t heard of it because, as you say, it hasn’t been too effective.
Then again, I still don’t believe Hillary Clinton can become president because I’ve never heard of a woman going any length of time without dropping everything to go shopping at the mall.
Women. They be shopping. Am I right guys? Anyone? Guys?
Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound quite that harsh (a little harsh, yes.) A quick googling yields many mentions of the procedure, with the earliest on the first page of results being Mando Ramos, then the lightweight champ, having it in 1970.
The varied results may also depend on the location of the cuts. When I had the surgery, in 1967, I recall the plastic surgeon emphasizing that plastic surgery for a cut on the eyelid, like mine, wasn’t nearly as dependable as for one higher up toward the eyebrow. He really didn’t offer much explanation why, except that the tissue was different.
Hopefully he doesn’t get the guy that did in Kanye West’s mother.
Fighters need a personal plastic surgeon along with a personal trainer these days!
Yea i think Nick needs to do something, take a few mos off and fully heal the scars, the staph, etc, cmon nick i cant wait to see u beat Karl like he was that dog with 2 peckers
It has been said that a dog with 2 peckers could fill two holes on the same dog. Entertaining piece.