Diaz vs Sanchez

Unleashed had fights by the two of these guys last night. Diaz continues to evoke mixed feelings in me. He's a shit-talker and I don't think that is good for the sport. Hopefully he will grow out of that. Don't get me wrong, I am a shit-talker too but it has a time and a place and I don't think inside the octagon is either of those things. Probably moreso now that the UFC is trying to go mainstream. His game is a thing of beauty though. I haven't seen much of the grappling yet but it's Gracie Jiu-Jitsu after all. He's a natural boxer by the looks of it and he has some crazy kicks as well. They probably don't do much other than give his opponent something to think about but in the octagon every little bit helps.

Diego looked good and reminded me why he won his weightclass in season one of TUF. He's a master on the ground. He gains position really well, he delivers good strikes on the ground (though he could still use some work in that area) and he has the submissions.

Diaz has the advantage in striking and he seems like he can just about match Diego's groundgame so the natural thing to do would be to keep it standing and I am not sure Diego has good enough takedowns to force the action where he wants it. Nevertheless I expect Diaz to let it go to the ground. He wanted to box with Lawler so I think he'll want to grapple with Sanches, just a hunch. I can't wait to see this fight!

POSTFIGHT

Sanchez won by a desicion, can't remember if it was split or unanimous. This was a heck of a fight in a night filled with very nice ones. Oops hang on. Got to get my son some cereal.

Okay where was I? Oh yeah! Well he likes the Captain Crunch and I go for the Special K vanilla almost, damn that's some good shit. Oh the fight! Oh. Anyway they looked like to pythons fighting out there. I figured it to be a ground fight and it was. Neither could impose themselves on the other one but it was fun to watch. Diego got shot strikes off on the ground but Nick defended well and not a whole lot go through. Both guys were bleeding but Diaz was bleeding much worse. I think Diego later said something about bathing in Nick's blood gave him extra power and that he would't bathe for a week. Or something.

The fight could have gone either way but I think Sanchez got it primarily because he kept taking down his opponent, maybe bloodying him up some too helped. I would expect a rematch in the future and I would expect Diaz to work on his sprawl because on the feet is his very best chance at winning the fight, not that he can't on the ground just that would be nearly equal and come down to execution and not making mistakes. Is that redundant?

I think the fight I want to see now is Joe Stevenson against Diego.