It’s no small irony that the first proper Strikeforce event of the Zuffa era is headlined by a fight between two infamous bad boys of mixed martial arts that both ran into problems with the UFC’s management due to post-fight misbehaviour. In his first run with the organisation Diaz got into a post-fight brawl in a hospital against Joe Riggs after UFC 57 while Paul Daley infamously sucker punched Josh Koscheck at UFC 113. One wonders what Dana White makes of this fight back in Las Vegas.
It is however a brilliant main event to kick off the new era and the intrigue really centers on how welterweight champion Nick Diaz will approach this match. Whereas most fighters seek to take the fight to where their opponent is weakest, Diaz seemingly takes a perverse joy out of beating his challengers at their own game. It is an approach that has turned his past two title matches from seemingly easy defenses into tight contests with both KJ Noons and Evangelista Santos finding unexpected joy against the champion in matches largely fought on the feet.
The Santos fight best showed the insanity of this approach with Diaz struggling against the challenger for almost two rounds until Cyborg took him down. As soon as that fight hit the ground the superior grappling of the Cesar Gracie Black Belt was clear as Diaz submitted the Brazilian in literally seconds. This lack of focus on his own strengths bleeds into his training and overall skill set. Diaz is clearly strongest with his grappling. But for any fighter to be consistently able to use jiu-jitsu in modern MMA they need to have elite level wrestling otherwise opponents can simply keep the fight on the feet. Despite this Diaz’s takedowns have showed no real sign of improvement over the past few years despite them usually being highlighted as his major weakness. If Diaz has not focused on improving his wrestling then no one should assume that this fight will go to the ground. Paul Daley may have struggled against Josh Koscheck but he’s shown good takedown defense in previous fights against non-wrestlers and an ability to scramble back to his feet if the person in top control is overly aggressive.
However Diaz may be able to still control the fight even if it does stay on the feet thanks to his much improved striking game. With superior height and reach Diaz has the natural gifts to keep Daley at bay and work him over with the quick jab and his varied selection of kicks. That would be consistent with his recent fights where his volume punching style allows him to outwork his opponents and simply outpoint them on number of punches thrown.
The danger with such a strategy is that unless he can wear Daley down and tire him out, its unlikely that Diaz has the power to knock the Brit out. That means to win a standing battle against Daley he may have to go the distance like he did against KJ Noons. In that fight Diaz showed impressive punch resistance as he was able to walk through repeated solid shots that landed cleanly on his chin. But while Noons is a former pro-boxer he’s a natural lightweight that lacked the power to hurt a Diaz that since their first fight at 160Ibs has grown into a fully fledged welterweight. Daley on the other is a large, powerful challenger to his throne that comes in with a KO rate of almost 75%.
Despite being the runaway favorite according to the bookamkers, Nick Diaz has a hard choice to make. He can either take the safe but boring route o taking the fight to the ground where his grappling would surely secure him a submission victory. Or he can roll the dice and stand with MMA’s foremost KO artist. Neither is the easy option. To achieve the former he will have had to embrace the grind of reptitious drills to improve his takedowns, something he has clearly not been willing to do previously. As for the latter route, bear this in mind. On 9th October 2010 KJ Noons landed over 300 strikes on Nick Diaz. On April 9th 2011 Paul Daley only needs to land one.
