WITH A PROFESSIONAL record of 18-10, Nate Diaz is no stranger to the taste of defeat.
However, while the Stockton fighter has often come up short on the judges’ scorecards, he’s extremely difficult to put away inside the distance.
In fact, when Conor McGregor attempts to add Diaz to his long list of knocked-out opponents on Saturday night at UFC 196, the Irish superstar will be aiming to do what has been done just once in the past.
Diaz’s bout against Josh Thomson in April 2013 was his 18th under the UFC banner. In his six years with the organisation until that point, many elite fighters — including Gray Maynard, Rory MacDonald and Benson Henderson — had all been unable to defeat Diaz via stoppage.
The only time Diaz had previously been finished in his career was on a WEC card in 2006 when he was submitted via armbar by Hermes França. With a wrestling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu foundation, just four of Thomson’s 19 wins to date had come by way of (T)KO, so few would have backed him to stop Diaz with strikes.
Nevertheless, the former Strikeforce champion devised an excellent game-plan which — although McGregor is unlikely to replicate — could give the Dubliner some hints on how to efficiently dispose of Diaz this weekend.
Diaz is a very accomplished boxer and he possessed a significant height and reach advantage — two and five inches respectively — over Thomson. McGregor will give up three inches in height but just two in reach at UFC 196.
Aware that standing square in front of a boxer of Diaz’s calibre would be an ominous tactic, Thomson opted to allow Diaz to control the centre of the octagon, while he busily circled on the outside, remaining mostly out of reach, only moving inside to land shots intermittently — remaining a moving target and difficult to hit.
Coupled with his decision to regularly switch stances, Thomson’s tactics prevented Diaz from gathering any momentum with his striking and it clearly frustrated him as early as just two minutes into the first round.
The chances of McGregor electing to stay on the back-foot and moving away from Diaz from the outset are slim, as it would be extremely out of character for the UFC featherweight champion to allow his opponent to dictate the dynamic of a fight in such a manner.
However, with Diaz taking Saturday’s bout on short notice and his gas tank likely to be far from full as a result, if McGregor forces him to chase the fight and combines that with the kind of teep-kicks to the body that were so instrumental in breaking down Chad Mendes at UFC 189, it could leave Diaz jaded and vulnerable.
Having had some success in the first round, Thomson ultimately capitalised on Diaz’s stance to secure the finish at the 3:44 mark of the second frame. With his hands low and his lead shoulder stooped, southpaw Diaz left himself open to the right head-kick. Although it was withstood, Thomson fired a warning sign at 1:43 of the first round.
With his vision seemingly impaired by the flow of blood caused by an earlier elbow from Thomson, Diaz shipped a similar head-kick with 90 seconds of the second round remaining. However, this time it was Thomson’s shin which connected instead of the foot, and Diaz went down.
Diaz tried to survive but Thomson followed up with ground-and-pound until referee Mike Beltran intervened to confirm the first — and only — (T)KO defeat of Nate Diaz’s career.
Thomson landed both kicks while in orthodox stance, which was favourable in terms of the power he generated. As a southpaw, McGregor more commonly pivots his hips to utilise the left head-kick instead, but — with his right shoulder turned in and kept low — Diaz may prove to be equally as susceptible to being caught by a leg coming from the that side.
McGregor demonstrated his willingness to use of the left head-kick against a fellow southpaw on a couple of occasions during his September 2014 defeat of Dustin Poirier.
Josh Thomson and Nate Diaz have gone on to experience contrasting fortunes since their April 2013 bout. Thomson felt the win would spark a UFC lightweight title challenge but he ended up losing three consecutive decisions and the organisation opted not to renew his contract.
The 37-year-old American Kickboxing Academy fighter instead signed with Bellator, where he picked up a pair of wins in the second half of 2015.
Diaz, on the other hand, is four days away from arguably the biggest fight of his career. He dropped a decision loss to Rafael dos Anjos in December 2014 but if the former TUF winner can shock McGregor on Saturday night, it will put him back in contention for a rematch with dos Anjos — who’s now the UFC lightweight champion.
To do that, however, he’ll need to finish McGregor, who’s unbeaten in 15 bouts, or else survive for 25 minutes and out-point the Straight Blast Gym man, who has knocked out his last five opponents in a combined time of less than 18 minutes.
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