Earlier this week Dana White came out and declared that a win for Diaz would equal a title shot whereas a win for Miller would mean, well, I guess his win bonus. If we wanted to try and figure out his logic we could of course point to the facts that Miller lost more recently (August) and that those two losses Diaz piled up in 2011 were in a different weight class but we would only be kidding ourselves, wouldn’t we? The Diaz brothers are infinitely more marketable than, say, the Miller brothers so even though Miller is the far better fighter he’ll have to work harder to earn his eventual title shot.
Such is life I suppose, but for me it’s kind of a bummer because while I am totally on board with the crazy antics of Nick Diaz, Nate just seems like the brother who has chosen to go big on the thuggishness but can’t back it up with straight comedy that his bro can provide.
As for the fight itself I don’t think that this warrants FOX TV main event status and not because these guys aren’t capable of being stars. Miller is one of the better fighters in the world in the sports toughest division while Diaz has that personality that is impossible to ignore. But I find it to be a mismatch. Currently Fight Matrix has them listed as #7 and 8 with Diaz as the higher ranked of the two but I just don’t buy into those numbers. I know a win over Donald Cerrone is worth a lot these days but certainly not that much. Also, I think the utter failure of his welterweight campaign should still be counted against him since he has only had 2 fights back at lightweight.
I will admit to being surprised by the ease with which Diaz handled Cerrone back at UFC 140 so maybe I’m writing him off too soon but that fight alone is not enough to convince me that he’ll have what it takes to combat the strength and wrestling ability of his opponent. Plus, if there are two things we can count on a Diaz to be it is cocky and sloppy and look how far that got Melvin Guillard when he ran up against Miller a few months ago. Miller’s only two loses in his last 18 fights have come against current UFC champ Ben Henderson and two time UFC contender Grey Maynard. Yes he got gobbled up in an ugly way by Henderson but there is no shame in that.
Much more shameful to me is Diaz’s 5-5 record in his last 10 outings. Sure that’s far better than I would have accomplished but Dana White really should be looking at that when granting title shots and not his excitement over the opportunity to splash Diaz’s name all over a PPV. To me this is clearly the easiest pick on the main card, look for Miller to chew Diaz up and finish him far before Nick has a chance to offer any brotherly advice from the corner. Miller doesn’t have the raw boxing skills that Diaz does but he has much more of a chance of landing a one punch knockout. I think he’ll land it early and end this fight in the opening frame but if not he can always fall back on his grappling and toss Diaz around the cage in much the same manner that Rory MacDonald did in Toronto last year.
Neither is likely to run out of steam though neither has ever fought past the third round. If you had to bet on one of them to outlast the other you would probably want to go with Diaz in that department which might slant the balance in his favor if this fight goes the distance. Of course for him to rack up massive points he’ll also have to keep things standing, something he had no problem doing against Cerrone. But I just can’t envision Miller letting things go that deep before he earns the stoppage victory. He’ll probably still need one more win to earn a rematch with Henderson (possibly against the winner of Guida/Maynard) but I have faith that he will one day be a champion.
Miller via 1st Round TKO
