MMA: Past Fight Discussion

[wandshogun09]

Aww you guys. Yeah I'll go with Diaz, only problem is some of his early fights are hard to find infact I'm not even sure they were all filmed. I'll do what I can though I know most of it's about.

[Rey_Piste]

Bruce Lee talks MMA - interview clips of Lee with highlights from UFC fights included http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7MnNiVEhOc...feature=relatedI love that. When you look at what Lee did in martial arts he was probably the first real mixed martial artist.

Many people call Jeet Kun Do the first mixed martial art, due to Lee taking bits and pieces of other martial arts and adding them to his arsenal. The first Mixed Martial Art would actually be Bartitsu, which comes from the late 19th century and mixes Jiu Jitsu, Boxing, Kickboxing as wel as Kendo using a walking cane.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartitsu

[Egg Shen]

Props on that superb write up, Wand. A great read.I'll throw a vote in for Diaz too

add my vote

[jimufctna24]

Another vote for Diaz

 

Here is a funny video of Dan Severn and Big John at UFC 12.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpg9Ej1iO6I

[wandshogun09]

Right, on the week where Nick Diaz has been slapped with a one year suspension and $60 grand fine, I've decided to start working my way through his rollercoaster of a fight career.

 

I wasn't gonna put this much background shit in but I found some cool older articles and interviews that I thought people might find interesting and wanna read.

 

spot the future fighter

 

 

Nicholas Robert Diaz was born in Stockton, California in 1983. He was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid and his mom wanted him to take part in sports and insisted he take up swimming. Nick joined the swimming team at Tokay High School in Lodi and has attributed his well known cardio training back to his swimming days.

 

His brother Nate was born less than two years later and the two have been close ever since.

 

 

His family moved around a lot when he was young and he had difficulties with schooling. He attened Tokay High School but dropped out after a year. According to Nick, Stockton was a rough place to grow up and school life there was tough.

 

"It was gangster shit in high school. My town is so much nicer now, and everything

Edited May 24, 2012 by wandshogun09

[jimufctna24]

Jeremy Jackson is still only 29, so he was around 23 on TUF. I always thought he was much older than that. He is forgotten with the Joe-Sons of the world, what a waste of talent.

 

Still the crime he did is pretty sickening. I will say I learn quite a bit from your posts Wand, the stuff from Diaz's high school I have never read that much depth into, the Pulver stuff as well.

[Magnum Milano]

I've got a Diaz career comp that I picked up several years back, and that begins with the Tyler fight so I'd be pretty certain that the Wick fight wasn't filmed. Not watched it in years, but from the brief notes that I wrote at the time, all I wrote about Tyler/Diaz was 'great first round'.

 

Another tale about Jackson that Meltzer always used to write about was that the mother of his child despised him so much, that she named their son Nick (after Diaz) who was his arch rival/nemesis at the time.

[Egg Shen]

yeh Jeremy Jackson is a troubled guy, wasn't he homeless and living on the streets when he took part in TUF?

[The Natural]

I forgot about this thread so just finished reading the last two entires of Wanderlei Silva's career by wandshogun09. Great read. If I remembered this thread was here, I would be the only person who would have voted against a Nick Diaz career write up and asked for a Big Nog or Shogun one instead because I don't like Nick Diaz. Hope you do them at some point wandshogun09 or my username ; ).

Edited May 25, 2012 by The Natural

[wandshogun09]

I've got a Diaz career comp that I picked up several years back, and that begins with the Tyler fight so I'd be pretty certain that the Wick fight wasn't filmed. Not watched it in years, but from the brief notes that I wrote at the time, all I wrote about Tyler/Diaz was 'great first round'.

 

Another tale about Jackson that Meltzer always used to write about was that the mother of his child despised him so much, that she named their son Nick (after Diaz) who was his arch rival/nemesis at the time.

 

Haha, Jesus. Never heard that one before. Diaz vs Tyler was one of the best lopsided fights I've ever seen. Tyler was never in with a sniff of winning but his escapes and refusal to tap made the fight.

 

I forgot about this thread so just finished reading the last two entires of Wanderlei Silva's career by wandshogun09. Great read. If I remembered this thread was here, I would be the only person who would have voted against a Nick Diaz career write up and asked for a Big Nog or Shogun one instead because I don't like Nick Diaz. Hope you do them at some point wandshogun09 or my username ; ).

 

Yeah I was torn between Diaz and Nog for this time. Probably go with Big Nog at some point after Diaz. Or maybe Shogun. I wanted a non Brazilian this time so went with Diaz. Plus there's plenty of outside the cage stuff and quotes with Diaz to break up the fights.

[wandshogun09]

 

Coming off the first loss of his career, Diaz got right back in there accepting a fight a month later against Harris 'The Hitman' Sarmiento. In Sarmiento's homeland Hawaii.

 

 

Sarmiento at this time was a rookie and was 0-2 so it's safe to say that this was a fight chosen to build Diaz back up after his quick loss to Jeremy Jackson.

 

Nick Diaz vs Harris Sarmiento

24.10.2002 - Warriors Quest 8

Sadly, this is another fight in which footage is hard to come by. My searches have come to nothing. All I know is that Nick Diaz won the fight by second round TKO due to Sarmiento's corner throwing the towel in.

 

Sarmiento has gone on to have a fairly decent career. He's fallen into the journeyman role and doesn't have the best record you'll ever see (34-23) but he's shown to be a tough opponent for many a rising star over the years and he doesn't struggle to get booked even now.

 

Since Diaz, he's fought notable names such as Gilbert Melendez, Roger Huerta, KJ Noons, Josh Thomson and Bart Palaszewski. And does hold wins over Rob McCullough and future UFC Ultimate Fighter winner Jonathan Brookins.

 

Back on the winning track, Diaz was next booked to make his Japanese MMA debut against Kuniyoshi Hironaka, who was 4-1 at this point with all of his fights under the Shooto banner. He's still fighting now, has a respectable 20-8 record and has fought the likes of Jon Fitch, Thiago Alves, Shinya Aoki and Hayato Sakurai.

 

 

Nick Diaz vs Kuniyoshi Hironaka

14.12.2002 - Shooto: 'Year End Show'

Round 1 is all Hironaka. He hits a sort of a Judo throw early on and Diaz never gets up. He's active off his back as usual but Hironaka does a great job of avoiding the submissions and landing some really solid ground and pound. Somewhere in this round the punches cut Diaz and he was bleeding from the eyebrow.

 

 

Diaz came out for round 2 looking to strike and landed some nice punches, a right hook in particular that seemed to rock Hironaka briefly and he quickly took Diaz down again. This time though, Diaz is able to avoid any real damage and escape to his feet. He landed some nice straight lefts in this round which snapped Hironaka's head back. From there they went into a cool little series of technical grappling with reversals by both and both staying moving constantly in top and bottom positions.

 

 

Diaz ended the round strong, landing a bunch of punches that seemed to have Hironaka hurt more than once and then on the ground Diaz was on top as the bell sounded.

 

Round 3 is a complete turnaround from the first round. Hironaka seemed to be tiring and Diaz was going for it. Hironaka tries and fails for the whole round to score a takedown while Diaz sprawls then peppers him with stinging punches standing. Hironaka tries a desperation guillotine late in the round but Diaz just winds up mounting him then ends up taking backmount and is working a choke as the time expires. Totally dominant round for Diaz there.

 

 

Winner - Hironaka by split decision.

 

Okay that's bullshit. Hironaka took the first round clearly no question. But the 2nd was Diaz's unquestionably to me. It was competitive but Diaz did way more damage, landed a load of punches standing which hurt Hironaka and he ended the round on top. Hironaka did nowt with his takedowns really. The third isn't even up for debate, a complete domination.

 

Good fight, bad hometown decision.

 

Full fight

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEdzRunYT2s

Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcfWshXjIG4...nel&list=UL

Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lttZFnLSGV0...nel&list=UL

 

 

Following that questionable decision loss, Diaz would fight in the WEC (before Zuffa owned the company) to crown their first champion at 170lbs. It was a good opportunity for Nick being on this card because the show was being headlined by the return to the sport of MMA legend Frank Shamrock. A name Nick would be linked with again later in his career.

 

For this fight though, Joe Hurley would be his opponent.

 

 

Hurley was a fighter out of Ken Shamrock's Lions Den camp. He came into this fight with a record of 11-2 and had wins over Yves Edwards and Pride/KOTC vet Chris Brennan. He also had a 6 second knockout on his record from an IFC fight. His only two losses were to respectable opposition in future UFC title challenger Gil Castillo and Vitor 'Shaolin' Ribeiro.

 

Emotional pre fight interview from Hurley. He had some friends who had died a year before this fight which led to some problems in his personal life. As he put it before the fight;

 

"God took my friends and now I'm here to beat on one of his creatures because of it"

 

Nick Diaz vs Joe Hurley

27.03.2003 - WEC 6: 'Return Of A Legend' - To crown first WEC Welterweight champion

Diaz hurts him immediately with punches then gets a takedown. From there he passes guard fairly easily, drops some hard punches on him and locks in a kimura from almost in north-south position and that's it. Looked brutal.

 

 

Diaz becomes the first ever WEC Welterweight champion with a first round submission.

 

Diaz vs Hurley

 

After this fight Hurley took a two year hiatus from MMA. He fought again in 2005 losing two in a row including a loss to Nick's younger brother Nate. Hurley beat CJ Thompson in Nov 2006 by first round submission and hasn't fought since.

 

Here's Diaz's opinions on Joe Hurley and their fight;

 

thaFormula.com - The first time I saw you fight was when you fought Lions Den fighter Joe Hurley at WEC 6. Do you think that victory was the fight that really put you on the radar seeing that Hurley was a big favorite and an up and coming fighter?

 

Nick Diaz - Well you know it was a big show and people I'm sure wanted to see Frank Shamrock. So yeah probably because it had a few stars there and I won a belt that day. It was a really good show for me.

 

Joe Hurley is a really underrated fighter by the way. My brother fought him too and this guy just can't catch a break. The Lions Den just kind of fell behind after a while and they didn't come from a strong background and that's what happens. This is a team sport believe it or not and these guys I'm sure really didn't care about each other and they didn't have a strong team. At one point in time the Lions Den was good but then they would move it to San Diego and here and there and see that doesn't really work out like that.

 

Then there is Joe Hurley, who is a good fighter. He deserves to fight somewhere like Pride for instance. When I started fighting, I went to go watch Joe Hurley fight. Joe Hurley knocked some guy out and everybody is screaming, "Hurley, Hurley, Hurley." This guy is crazy you know. Big pale eyed, pale faced, bigheaded dude with this Shamrock tattoo on the side of his arm. And I was like 18 at the time and this guy was a seriously scary fighter. I didn't know I was gonna end up fighting him a year later. If someone had told me I would have probably been shitting bricks. As far as I knew he was unstoppable, and then now he just falls off because the sport grows real quick and no one is helping this guy out. If he trained with us, this guy would be huge.

 

So following his second title win, in his next fight he would be defending his first title. The IFC United States Welterweight belt in a rematch with the first man to ever beat him, Jeremy Jackson.

 

Nick Diaz vs Jeremy Jackson 2

19.07.2003 - IFC: 'Warriors Challenge 18' - IFC United States Welterweight Title

This is another one I can't find anywhere. Diaz won the rematch though, by TKO with punches late in the first round.

 

 

Revenge!

 

If Diaz was sick of the sight of Jackson then he wasn't about to get a break. His very next fight would be the rubber match to settle the score in their trilogy.

 

It was also the biggest break of his career to date because this fight would also be his UFC debut.

 

 

Nick Diaz vs Jeremy Jackson 3

26.09.2003 - UFC 44: 'Undisputed'

Diaz goes for takedowns right away but Jackson defends and lands some good shots in close. Diaz goes on to dominate the rest of the round using his superior grappling. Late in the round Diaz appears to rock him but Jackson quickly fires back and winds up on top of Diaz as the round ends. Clearly Diaz's round, the takedowns and ground and pound sealed it for him.

 

 

Diaz relentlessly goes after the takedowns in round 2 and dishes out some solid ground striking with some really nasty looking elbows. Some great scrambles and reversals on the ground, Diaz was constantly threatening with submissions from top and bottom but Jackson ended the round strong and was able to land some big punches from Diaz's guard. Closer round.

 

 

Round 3 Diaz landed a nice right hook early and gets a takedown and goes to side control. Jackson fights it and gets to his feet but Diaz won't let up and pulls guard setting up and armbar from the bottom a couple of minutes into round 3.

 

 

Good all action fight there.

 

Diaz vs Jackson 3

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/rrLHTG2FMTo/

 

For Diaz's second fight in the UFC he was given an unenviable task in 'Ruthless' Robbie Lawler.

 

 

Lawler was considered the next big thing in MMA at the time, had a ton of hype behind him and Zuffa were very high on him.

 

A young, explosive and vicious knockout artist coming out of the Pat Miletich gym in Bettendorf, Iowa. The Miletich camp was on a hot streak back then and were considered the most successful and dominant team at the time with champions and former champions like Matt Hughes, Tim Sylvia, Jens Pulver and universally respected fighter Jeremy Horn all under the Miletich banner.

 

Diaz was coming into this fight seen as a massive underdog. It was thought that Lawler was too dangerous on the feet for a BJJ guy to cope with and that Diaz would have problems taking him down due to Lawler's solid sprawl and his training with expert grapplers like Hughes and Horn.

 

Right from the off it was clear what the guys from Lawler's camp expected and their pre-fight interviews illustrate what they were thinking;

 

Robbie Lawler

"Nick Diaz is an alright wrestler, he's gonna look to take me to the ground where he can utilize his jiu-jitsu. He trains with Cesar Gracie, he's a good ground expert."

 

Pat Miletich

"Nick Diaz is a very skilled grappler but I don't think he's gonna get Robbie down. I really don't. Rob's takedown defence is pretty solid."

 

Diaz on the other hand, hinted that he might do the unthinkable and try to stand with Lawler;

 

"We do a lot of boxing so...I don't wanna get caught with some of the crazy punches he throws from far away.

 

He's a tough guy, y'know, he's real strong. You gotta watch out 'cos he's coming with hard punches. He's got knockout power but...I think he looks a little sloppy. I think he thinks he's a little better than he is."

 

Lots of similarities between these two. Close in age with Lawler being 22 and Diaz at 20 at the time of this fight. Both southpaw, similar records.

 

Nick Diaz vs Robbie Lawler

02.04.2004 - UFC 47: 'It's On'

Diaz right away looked like a different fighter than in his last fight. No touching gloves and came right at Lawler with a hopping side kick which must have surprised Lawler a bit.

 

Diaz, to the surprise of everyone, was holding his hands down by his sides and sticking his chin out and taunting a lot. Risky but it seemed like it was really throwing Lawler off. Diaz did a good job getting his punches off first in the first round. Lawler landed some hard shots back but Diaz landed more often and was talking shit the whole time.

 

 

Lawler couldn't get past the straight punches to land his hooks. There was a great bit in this round where Diaz rocks him with a jab-left hook combo and Lawler got pissed off and they both started teeing off. Lawler finally caught up to Diaz late in the round and landed some big punches and a flying knee against the cage

 

 

The crowd goes mental for that, they were getting pretty arsey about Diaz's antics by now. Diaz kept pressing though and had Lawler backing up for probably the first time in his career. Diaz fires off a sweet combo against the cage and then ends the round with some of the slowest pisstake head and body kicks I've ever seen just to annoy Lawler.

 

Great round.

 

They picked up right where they left off in round 2 throwing wild punches and talking shit. You could really tell listening to the commentary that this wasn't the plan with Goldberg actually asking "At what point Joe, does Diaz find out he's bitten off more than he can chew?" Rogan to be fair gives Diaz his props throughout the fight and said from early in the fight that Cesar Gracie had told him Diaz was a better striker than people think.

 

Lawler seems frustrated and went on the attack. He came in reckless and Diaz caught him coming in with a right and Lawler faceplants. He tries to get up but his legs are well and truly gone and the ref stops it.

 

 

With hindsight looking at all the interviews I guess Diaz made it pretty clear what he was planning to do. He doesn't mention grappling or takedowns once before the fight. And it's obvious from the way Lawler and Miletich were talking that they were expecting Diaz to do pretty much nothing but shoot for takedowns.

 

At the time nobody expected the fight to pan out the way it did.

 

Really impressive. This was Nick Diaz's coming out party, the fight that really got people to take notice and put him on the map.

 

Diaz vs Lawler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGygsFtfdq4

 

Diaz backstage post fight

 

"First of all, I feel really bad for talking a lot of shit while I was in the cage there. You know, I have nothing against Robbie Lawler. He's a great fighter.

 

I just felt strong you know. He did that thing where he smiles and puts his hands up and I'm like 'fuckin bring it'. I want him to come after me, 'cos that's how I'm gonna land my shots. I wanted him to take ME down, you know. Everybody's like 'oh you gotta get him to the ground, get him to the ground.' I'm like fuck that, he's gonna get me to the ground and then we're gonna fuckin' tap him out."

 

and here's his take on the Lawler fight from later;

 

thaFormula.com - Now let's get into your match with Robbie Lawler. Was that a match you were told you would receive if you won in the UFC or was that a short notice type match? Break that match down.

 

Nick Diaz - I was in Japan and I was cornering Jake Shields. I think I had just fought and I was still training a little bit. They called me and they told me while I was in Japan that I was fighting Robbie Lawler. I just wanted to go home and start training right away, but I didn't expect them to call me for a serious fight like that. I knew they might bring me back though. So I started training boxing immediately for that fight and I was really confident. I was ready to have that fight. See 'cause I remember watching Robbie Lawler fight and sitting at home and going, I really wanna fight this guy. Because people were looking at me whenever Lawler was on TV, like 'oh that guy will whoop your ass'.

 

So that right away made me want to fight this guy because I know I got better boxing skills and I know I'm gonna have better Jiu Jitsu skills 'cause I'm training Gracie Jiu Jitsu. I have a good Jiu Jitsu coach, and you know good training partners in Jiu Jitsu. So automatically I wanted to fight Robbie Lawler. I was just totally pumped for that fight and it was a huge fight for me.

 

thaFormula.com - I remember so many people thought he was way too much for you and that you were gonna get knocked out by Lawler?

 

Nick Diaz - You see this is really cool that we get to talk about this, because that's the thing about the way they promoted him. It's so huge the way they promoted this guy. It wasn't so much that he was overrated, it was that he was over promoted and alot of times this Miletich team can be over promoted I think little bit. But actually not so much even that. He was really huge at the time and everybody's favorite fighter for a minute you know. He knocked everybody out so he was huge. So I was like, here is my chance if I knock this guy out.

 

thaFormula.com - During your training for the fight, did you think that you would knock him out sometime during the fight?

 

Nick Diaz - I thought that I would be able to win the fight as long as I didn't get cut. If we ended up on the ground, I knew I was gonna put the arm bar or triangle all the way on him, he's gonna try and pull me back up and I'm gonna throw more punches at him. Also, I was sparring a southpaw that was ranked 5th in the world you understand! "Smooth" Rodney Jones just had a world title fight recently with Cory Spinks. He had a tough fight and lost a decision . So I had this really, really seriously good boxing training and I was doing a really good job sparring boxing with this world ranked boxing partner. And I knew that Robbie Lawler wasn't gonna do 3 rounds with this guy. So this is what gave me alot of confidence going into this fight. I knew he was gonna box with me, so it wasn't gonna be like he was gonna take me down and hold me like the other guys that I fought knew to do after watching me fight.

 

And then the thing I wanna talk about also, is how over promoted he was and how he was like the poster boy. Then I beat him, but they don't promote me like that! It wasn't like that now. See what they did was, they automatically were like, "man we fucked up".

 

They were pissed off or something, and now they got like Karo Parisyan and they're like alright well we will go with Judo. They're like, we know how to get rid of this kid quick, we will put this judo on him. I said, why can't you give me 5 fucking scrubs like you did Robbie Lawler and let me knock them all out? 'Cause I'll fucking knock every fucking motherfucker out! Or just put me with Matt Hughes 'cause I will knock that muthafucka out right now! I was really ready to fight Matt Hughes at that time, really fucking ready to fight Hughes.

 

But I just kept my mouth shut like a good kid, like I was supposed to keep my mouth shut and not talk trash. See 'cause I don't have alot of trash to talk dude. I'll let my fighting do the talking, but sometimes I'm just like I need to get a reaction out of some fucking people or something 'cause this is fucking ridiculous!"

 

 

 

"You've got Floyd Mayweather making $25 million. He can't stop a double-leg."

Edited June 1, 2012 by wandshogun09

[Egg Shen]

Lawler/Diaz will always remaina special one to me. It was the first time watching a live fight that my jaw literally dropped. Up until that point i was on a major catching up binge, i was new to the sport and i was trying to watch as much old stuff as a i could.

 

One of the names that originally got me excited back then was Robbie Lawler, he was young and the UFC were promoting him as some kind of young, white Mike Tyson. I saw kill Tiki then have that classic with Chris Lytle (the first live MMA fight on tv i ever watched) then i saw him come up against the gangly looking Diaz, i honestlty thought Lawler was going to kill him. I aint seen it in a while but im pretty sure the commentary team was as surprised as anyone that Diaz traded with Lawler.

 

The knock out was a truly moment. It's shit like this that got me hooked on the sport.

[jimufctna24]

Ken Shamrock on the Diaz Brothers.

 

 

Insightful interview.

Edited June 1, 2012 by jimufctna24

[Egg Shen]

eh?

 

Ken claims he trained them, then 20 seconds later says he doens't know them. Did i hear that right?

[The Natural]

eh?

 

Ken claims he trained them, then 20 seconds later says he doens't know them. Did i hear that right?

 

Blame it on the beatings Ken has suffered.