After being promised a “dog fight” in the UFC 143 main event, UFC fans could not be blamed if they were somewhat skeptical when Diego Sanchez proclaimed that his UFC of Fuel TV main event bout against Jake Ellenberger was going to be the same.
After 15 minutes, I’m not sure if you could construe what occurred between Sanchez and Ellenberger as a dog fight, but even if you don’t there’s no denying that it was one of the more entertaining fights that fans witnessed in some time.
In the end, Ellenberger controlled the first two rounds, dealing with a late ground and pound onslaught from Sanchez to secure the unanimous decision victory.
Questions after seeing Diego Sanchez vs. Jake Ellenberger:
-Where does the win put Ellenberger? The Welterweight division is in a state of disarray right now. UFC Champion Georges St. Pierre is on the shelf recovering from knee surgery. Interim UFC Champion Carlos Condit looks like he will wait for St. Pierre to return before fighting again. Top ranked contender Nick Diaz is facing a suspension following a positive drug test and two other highly ranked competitors, Josh Koscheck and Johny Hendricks aren’t scheduled to compete against each other until May 5.
The Ellenberger versus Condit bout would be compelling as would an Ellenberger versus Diaz match up, but they don’t look like they will come together at this point. The wait for the winner of the Koscheck versus Hendricks fight may be too far off for Ellenberger’s liking.
In the end it may be in the UFC’s best interest to sweeten the pot and exert a little pressure on Condit to take the fight against Ellenberger, after all, it’s a fight that many fans want to see.
-What’s next for Diego Sanchez? Sanchez may be relegated to gatekeeper status at this point in his UFC career, but that’s not a bad place for him or for the UFC. You can throw Sanchez onto any main card and know full well that he is going to deliver an entertaining fight and that he will not quit no matter how badly the odds seem to be stacked against him. Sanchez is the type of fighter the UFC covets and no matter what his nickname is as long as his style remains the same he should have a job with the promotion.
Notes and more questions following UFC on Fuel TV:
-Following the action packed main event many fans were left wanting more, wishing the main event would have been a five rounds rather than three. Well, reports from the post-fight press conference indicate that UFC President Dana White has announced that five round main events will be coming to all UFC cards.
-The jury is still out on Stipe Miocic. I understand the tendency is to rush to get behind a fighter that shows some promise and Miocic does show that, but he also shows some weaknesses that top level competition can exploit, don’t forget, not too long ago Brendan Schaub was being promoted as a future UFC Heavyweight Champion.
-T.J. Dillashaw, while impressive in his victory over Walel Watson showed no real killer instinct. If a fighter has the ability to control and outstrike his opponent like Dillashaw did he also needs to finish him. Dillashaw looked good, but without a killer instinct and the ability or desire to put his UFC opponents away, he will have a career of preliminary card or free TV fights.
The UFC will head to Nebraska this week when it presents UFC on Fuel TV 1 from the Omaha Civic Auditorium. Headlining the evening’s fight card will be a welterweight bout of some significance as Diego Sanchez meets Jake Ellenberger.
Sanchez, who was once known as “Nightmare,” but now goes by “Dream”, comes into the fight on a two-fight winning streak, taking home Fight of the Night honors in both of those bouts. In fact, Sanchez has become quite accustomed to cashing Fight Night bonus checks as of late, taking home four in his last six fights. In his last 10 UFC bouts, Sanchez has gone 6-4.
Ellenberger has heard his name being mentioned as a future welterweight champion, and his 53-second destruction of former Strikeforce champion Jake Shields in September of last year only caused that talk to increase. Since losing his UFC debut to Carlos Condit, Ellenberger has put together five straight victories, with four of those coming via KO or TKO.
The evening’s co-main event will see Stefan Struve face off against Dave Herman in a heavyweight contest. Struve enters the fight coming off a Submission of the Night victory over Pat Barry on Oct. 1. For his part, Herman’s last fight was a Fight of the Night victory over John-Olav Einemo at UFC 131.
Another fight of note will see the highly touted heavyweight prospect Stipe Miocic, who will face Phillip De Fries in Omaha. Both fighters are unbeaten heading into their bout with Miocic sporting a 7-0 record and De Fries going 8-0-0-1.
Main Card Odds:
Jake Ellenberger favorite (-345) over Diego Sanchez (+275)
Dave Herman favorite (-150) over Stefan Struve (+120)
Aaron Simpson favorite (-122) over Ronny Markes (-108)
Stipe Miocic favorite (-400) over Phillip De Fries (+300)
TJ Dillashaw (-300) favorite over Walel Watson (+240)
Main Event and Co-Main Event Predictions:
Diego Sanchez vs. Jake Ellenberger: First things first, I will be totally shocked if we see anything but an all out stand up battle in this one, but then again I expected the same from Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit and we all know how that turned out. The key for Ellenberger will be the pace of Sanchez. If Ellenberger allows Sanchez to set and control the pace he may find himself on the losing end in this one. What could be Sanchez’s downfall in this bout is his willingness to stand and brawl. He’s always shown that he can take a punch, but at some point that ability turns into a liability and this may very well be the fight where Sanchez suffers his first “true” KO or TKO loss. Ellenberger has 17 KO wins in his career, I’m going to go out on a limb on this one and predict he makes it 18 on Wednesday. Ellenberger by second round TKO.
Stefan Struve vs. Dave Herman: Dave Herman made his UFC debut at UFC 131 ending John-Olav Einemo’s night via a second round TKO, earning “Fight of the Night” Honors in the process. Struve also took home a Fight Night bonus in his last bout stopping Pat Barry via triangle choke. Struve has been a slow starter in many of his bouts and Herman must take advantage of that. Watch for Herman to force Struve into a brawl early on exploiting that weakness and ending the fight early. Herman by first round TKO.
The main card of the evening will be broadcast on Fuel TV beginning at 8 p.m. ET. The preliminary card will stream on the UFC’s Facebook page.
To borrow a line from The Usual Suspects, “and just like that…he’s gone.” Well, maybe not “he” in this case, but it’s gone, and that it is the rematch between Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit.
What seemed like an almost sure thing late Tuesday night has evaporated before our very eyes as, according to the Nevada State Athletic Commission, Nick Diaz has tested positive for “marijuana metabolites.”
Some will claim that the rematch should have never even been discussed in the first place, while others will opine that the rematch should have been booked before Diaz and Condit even walked out of the Mandalay Bay Events Center on Saturday, February 4.
The question now moves from should Diaz and Condit fight toward what does the UFC do with Nick Diaz? He’ll be subject to whatever suspension the Nevada State Athletic Commission deems acceptable, but will there be additional punishment doled out by the UFC?
If it was just this suspension, relating to the failed drug test, I would say, no, he would serve his NSAC time away from the sport and then he would be eligible to come back and step into the Octagon, much like Chael Sonnen did with his recent suspension, but there’s more to it with Diaz.
Ever since he signed with the UFC he’s been a thorn in the organization’s side. He cost the promotion countless dollars when he blew off media obligations and forced the UFC to remove him from the UFC 137 main event. He wasn’t cut then; he was instead booked to face BJ Penn in the co-main event a fight that eventually became the main event when Georges St-Pierre was forced to withdraw due to injury.
His actions after that fight, where he called St-Pierre out from the center of the Octagon after his win over Penn, had St-Pierre so incensed that the champion begged White and Zuffa CEO Lorenzo Fertitta to allow him to fight Diaz. This caused the cancellation of St-Pierre’s scheduled fight against Condit, another fight that never came to fruition due to another St-Pierre injury.
And now we have this, Diaz failing a drug test, the second failed drug test of his MMA career, the first coming after he defeated Takanori Gomi via Gogoplata at Pride 33 back in February 2007. For that positive test, also for marijuana, Diaz was suspended for six months and his victory was changed to a no contest.
There will be howling from both sides on this subject. One side will want to see Diaz released, the other will say past precedent should allow him to stay, and then there is the elephant in the room, FOX. Will FOX have a say in Diaz’s fate since it is now the UFC’s network TV partner?
The rematch between Diaz and Condit may have disappeared, but this just the start of things for Nick Diaz.
As far as retirement speeches go, Nick Diaz’s at the conclusion of his five-round bout with Carlos Condit left something to be desired.
Diaz, frustrated with how the fight played out, stood in the center of the Octagon and said: “I don’t need this sh*t. I pushed this guy backwards. He ran from me the whole fight. He ran this whole fight. I landed the harder shots. He ran the whole time. He kicked me in the leg with little baby leg kicks the whole fight. That’s the way they understand to win in here. I don’t want to play this game no more.”
The jury is out on whether or not Diaz will actually hang up the gloves and, to borrow a phrase from Mike Tyson, “fade into Bolivian,” but if he does, it will be a huge loss for the sport of mixed martial arts.
Love him or hate him—judging from the crowd noise coming from the Mandalay Bay Events Center at UFC 143, far more people love Diaz than hate him—he will be missed when he’s gone.
Diaz is the person that many long to be. There’s no pretense in his words or actions, there’s no thought of how he’ll look in the press or to his employer nor is their any consideration to the repercussions of his actions. A thought pops in his head and the words come out unfiltered.
How many of us have wished we could do what Nick Diaz does?
Both those that love him and hate him will miss Diaz’s off-the-cuff remarks during interviews, but where he’ll truly be missed is inside the Octagon.
The UFC seems to be experiencing a sea change these days, as fighters no longer enter the cage to see who the better fighter is, but instead are competing to decide who the better athlete is.
Some will say this is natural progression, turning MMA into a sport like all other sports, where the win is the most important thing. Others will bemoan the change, saying that as a combat sport, the intent should not be simply to gain a victory, but should be about leaving it all in the cage win or lose.
Both of the above theories have their merit, but as the sport attempts to break into the mainstream, we’ll probably see more and more fighters employing game plans akin to the one Carlos Condit used to defeat Nick Diaz on Saturday.
This is why we’ll all miss Nick Diaz. For all his perceived faults, he was a fighter that had one plan: Win or lose, he was going to leave it in the cage. If you polled fans and fighters, you would find that many would say that a Nick Diaz fight was a can’t-miss fight, that he was never in a boring fight.
As more and more fights start to edge toward technical battles where the win is the most important thing, Diaz was a throwback, a “just scrap” kind of fighter in a world of automatons just doing what their trainer has game-planned them to do.
Some will say good riddance to Diaz, proclaiming he was overrated and overpaid, a loud-mouth miscreant, an ingrate who refused to play the game. Others will say that Diaz was misunderstood, that his love for fighting and training is what really mattered.
Whichever side you fall on, you may not realize it now, but in time you will pine for the days that a scowling Nick Diaz stalked his opponent inside the cage.
Leading up to UFC 143 many thought that Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit would be a striking battle with two of the most accomplished strikers in the Welterweight division just throwing down and going for it. Things didn’t exactly go that way, instead Carlos Condit used a perfect game plan to counter Nick Diaz’s style and take home the interim UFC Welterweight title after the five round battle.
Questions after seeing Nick Diaz vs. Carlos Condit:
-Did the UFC just see a lot of pay per view buys disappear? When the UFC champion openly roots for one fighter to win you have to think that the fans of the sport are also going to want to see that fight. That was the case leading up to UFC 143’s main event as Georges St. Pierre said he wanted Diaz to win so he could fight him. With Condit taking home the victory and the interim title, the UFC may have just seen a possible 1 million buy pay per view card fall by the wayside.
-Will fans be turned off by the Condit vs. St. Pierre bout? Condit did what he had to do to win against Nick Diaz, there’s no denying that or faulting him for it, his style gained him the interim title, but will his performance tonight drive fans away from a bout against St. Pierre? While it’s true that Condit has not used this style during his UFC career fans may very well remember it because it’s the freshest fight in their minds and may decide that the match between him and St. Pierre will not be an exciting fight. Right or wrong when the UFC is asking fans to go into their pockets for a pay per view, the entertainment value will be considered by the consumer.
-Will Nick Diaz stay retired? Following the fight Nick Diaz told Joe Rogan, “Carlos is a great guy, I’m happy for him and his family. I think I’m done with this MMA, it’s been great out here, I’ve had a good career, you guys pay me way too much, but I don’t think I’m gonna get enough to keep going in this and it’s been a good time. Good job Carlos, you’re the man bro.” When asked if he was really retiring Diaz replied, “I don’t need this s—t.” Whether that was a frustrated fighter talking or words from the heart, we’ll have to see.
Questions Following UFC 143:
-Did Renan Barao do enough to warrant a title shot? My knee jerk reaction is no he did not, but a glance at the Bantamweight ranks changes my tune, but only if Dominick Cruz defeats Urijah Faber at the conclusion of the upcoming season of “The Ultimate Fighter.” Let’s face it, Cruz has already defeated most of the top contenders and the UFC needs some fresh blood to attempt to unseat him.
-How high is Dustin Poirier’s upside? Not too long ago Dustin Poirier was a fighter thrown in at the last minute to give a top contender, Josh Grispi, an easy win while he waited for Jose Aldo to heal up. Poirier took that opportunity and made the best of it, dominating Grispi. Poirier has now gone 4-0 in the UFC and he has looked better in each fight. He’s quickly climbing the rankings and may be next in line for a shot at Jose Aldo, but he may also need one more fight against a top level Featherweight before getting that shot. Perhaps match him up against Chad Mendes next and with a win let him have a shot at Aldo.
-Is Stephen Thompson ready for top level competition? Thompson entered UFC 143 riding on a sea of hype and his “Knockout of the Night” performance did little to calm that, but one win does not make “the next big thing.” Thompson looked good against Dan Stittgen, but Stittgen was also making his UFC debut in this fight and is not exactly at the top of the UFC heap. Thompson’s young, let’s give him some time to develop at his own pace before calling him the next anything.
After being promised a “dog fight” in the UFC 143 main event, UFC fans could not be blamed if they were somewhat skeptical when Diego Sanchez proclaimed that his UFC of Fuel TV main event bout against Jake Ellenberger was going to be the same.
