Let's Remember A Guy: Joe Riggs
Here's a dude who nearly died from an accidental gunshot wound, fought Nick Diaz in the cage *and* the hospital, and somehow he's not even done yet.
Hello and welcome to Let’s Remember A Guy, a possibly regular feature in which we hit pause on the ceaseless MMA carousel of weekly fighting events to reflect on some figure from the sport’s past. This is not meant to imply that they are dead, retired, a good (or bad) person, or really anything else. It’s just an opportunity to remember a fighter who might not be all that well-known or understood by newer fans, while also giving those us who do remember him/her the chance to go, oh yeah I remember that guy. This week: Joe “Diesel” Riggs.
One of my favorite MMA trivia questions goes a little something like this: Who’s the only fighter to beat Nick Diaz, Phil Baroni, and Herb Dean (yep, that Herb Dean)? The answer, as you’ve probably guessed from the title of this entry, is Joseph Jonathan Riggs, a man who has lived many, many, many lives in combat sports over the last couple decades, and would probably be the first to tell you that he ought to have died at least a few times by now.
For instance, there was that whole thing with the accidental gunshot wound. As in, the time he accidentally shot himself at the end of a long day while trying to unload the gun he carried with him everywhere (like you do).
I remember interviewing Riggs for a story I wrote about him and thinking about how best to broach this subject. I knew I wanted to ask him about the time he accidentally shot himself in the leg and nearly bled to death. I had to ask him, really. I needed to hear that story for myself and have the chance to ask some follow-ups, yet I also understood how someone might not feel like recounting that particular moment in his life to a stranger on the phone. You might say I brought the matter up carefully. That night, I asked him, what was it like? Joe laughed.
“Bro, I fucking shot myself,” he said. “What do you think it was like?”
I took this to be his way of telling me it was bad, real bad. When I pressed for more details, he told me it was actually a really crazy experience, which, yeah, makes sense. Then he described the feeling of watching blood pump forth from the wound in his thigh, spurting out in the same rhythm as his heartbeat, which is when he became absolutely certain that he’d hit his femoral artery and was about to die. What surprised him most, he said, was his own reaction.
“You think you’re going to be like, ‘Fight it, fight it, I have to live.’ But it’s not like that,” Riggs told me for a story in 2019. “I was at peace. I wanted to go. And then whatever place I went to after that, it was like all your worldly stress and concerns just leaving you. It was a place that I didn’t want to come back from.”
Most people, that’d be far and away the most intense, insane, and scariest thing to ever happen to them. For Riggs, you got the sense that it was somewhere in the top three.
One of my favorite Joe Riggs stories is the time he won a decision over Nick Diaz at UFC 57, then fought him again in the hospital that same night. To this day those two still argue over who started the fight and who won it. The way Riggs told it, the post-fight shit talk started right away, with Diaz calling for “Round 4” as soon as they made it backstage. This surprised Riggs, he said later, since most of the time whatever bad blood that existed prior to the fight is dispelled by the chance to fight in a cage for 15 minutes. Not so when a Diaz brother is involved.
They continued exchanging words about who did what and who deserved to win the judges’ decision even after they were transported to the hospital. Just to fully appreciate the absurdity of the scene here, you have to picture Riggs attached to an IV, both hands broken, trying to provide a urine sample for the state athletic commission while also trying to talk shit to Diaz in the hospital hallway. The thing he said that really set Diaz off, apparently, was to point out that Diaz had now lost back-to-back fights in the UFC and might get cut and end up back on the regional circuit as a result.
“I think I said something like, ‘have fun in the WEC,’” Riggs said. Then, satisfied with this rakish bon mot, he turned away from Diaz to resume his hospital-related business. “I never thought he’d actually hit me or anything,” Riggs said.
Again, here’s where the involvement of a Diaz really throws off the usual calculus of these types of interactions. Diaz did hit him. Hard. He even knocked out one of Riggs’ teeth. And, just to tell you what type of guy Riggs is, the thing he remembered being upset about it in that exact moment was that he had a wedding coming up and now he was going to look like some bumpkin with a missing tooth. This worry subsided later, he said, when he realized the tooth Diaz knocked out was “just a molar.”
After that the two went at in the hospital hallway – IV tubes flying out, blood spurting everywhere, normal-ass civilians looking on in horror – until they were eventually separated. And if you think this incident caused them big trouble with the UFC, nah, not really. They both fought for the promotion later that same year. Meanwhile, somewhere in America some poor nurse is still bringing this story up whenever younger colleagues complain that they had just had the worst day of work ever.
One thing I learned from following Riggs’ career and talking to him over the years was that even the people who seem like born tough guys who were made for the fight game – and Riggs is definitely that, as evidenced by the fact that he’s still slugging it out in Bare Knuckle FC and, as of this Instagram post from four days ago, still a threat to get into some road rage shit at any moment – they still struggle with the mental part of this business sometimes. And it’s not fear, at least not in the way you’d think. It’s not fear of getting beaten up, or fear what might happen to his physical body in a cage fight. That part, most fighters have pretty much made their peace with long before we ever hear of them. And when you’ve been at this for as long as Riggs has, most of the bad shit that can happen to you has already happened.
Really, the hard part to negotiate is the potential damage to the psyche. Riggs once told me that for years he had a problem with self-sabotage. He was scared not just of losing, but of trying his best and losing. Because if you really do everything you’re capable of in a fight and the other guy still beats you? Then you might have to confront the possibility that he’s just better than you. And in those days and weeks after a loss, you’ll have to sit with that unpleasant knowledge – a lot, over and over again – which might make it tough to pick yourself back up and throw your body back in there for the next one.
So Riggs would find little ways of quitting before the fight even started, he said. The bigger the fight – like when he came in heavy for a shot at Matt Hughes’ UFC welterweight title – the more he felt the need to give himself an out. That way, when he lost, he could tell himself that it wasn’t really him in there. He didn’t show all he’s capable of. The other guy didn’t beat him – Joe Riggs beat Joe Riggs. How many times have we heard some version of this from fighters after a loss?
Then one night he fought Phil Baroni in Strikeforce and, as he was warming up in the locker room, he could feel it happening all over again. He didn’t think he could beat Baroni. So maybe he’d just shoot a takedown and leave his neck open for a guillotine choke. In this way, he would protect his own psyche, his own ego.
What happened to shake him out of it was that Baroni started talking to him from across the hall, asking if he was ready for the ass-whipping to come, if he’d brought a body bag, shit like that. It was enough to where Riggs decided, you know something, fuck this guy. He stopped worrying about winning or losing. He just genuinely wanted to go out there and fight this dude. Soon the feeling of dread gave way to one of excited anticipation. Then he went out and won the damn fight.
The craziest Riggs fact of all is that, as of the time of this writing, he is somehow only 39 years old. This still feels impossible to me. I remember when he first showed up in the UFC in 2004 and it seemed like he’d already spent a lifetime in this sport. He had over 20 goddamn fights then. He had his nickname tattooed across his belly. Clearly, this was a guy who had already seen some shit in the world of MMA.
Then years would go by and I’d see him in Strikeforce, Bellator, the UFC again, BKFC. I’d keep thinking, one of these days they’ll show the graphic on the screen and Riggs will suddenly be 54, just all the years catching up at once. But no. Somehow he’s gone all this time and has thus far stubbornly refused to even break 40. It defies explanation.
Even wilder, he’s still at this shit. Last I heard he had a bare-knuckle fight booked for September. If you should happen to see him in the hospital after that fight, which is always a likely scenario with any bare-knuckle boxing match, win or lose? My advice is to mind your business and remain exceedingly polite. A guy gets sucker punched with an IV in his arm once, something tells me he stays ready ever after.