In retrospect, how good was Nick Diaz back in the days ?

Hazuki Ryo

Hazuki Ryo

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Not trying to compare him to actual WW cause that was a different time, but how good was Nick ?

We all have in mind his KO of Lawler (which was a bit of a weird win), his fight against Gomi, Condit, GSP, but apart from them did he really fight a tought opposition ?

I have Sakurai, Noons, Gomi, Tibau, Shamrock, Lawler as his best wins
 
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Hazuki Ryo said:
Not trying to compare him to actual WW cause that was a different time, but how good was Nick ?

We all have in mind his KO of Lawler (which was a bit of a weird win), his fight against Gomi, Condit, GSP, but apart from them did he really fight a tought opposition ?

I have Sakurai, Noons, Gomi, Tibau, Shamrock, Lawler as his best wins
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It's his attitude that makes me like him. He always had insane cardio though so he just fucking kept coming nonstop. Aside from that, stylistically he is just ok. It's his indomitable will.
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He fought BJ, Anderson, and GSP, finished with 1 win, 1 loss and 1 NC....and talked shit to all of them the whole time.

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EGarrett said:
He fought BJ, Anderson, and GSP, finished with 1 win, 1 loss and 1 NC....and talked shit to all of them the whole time.
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BJ and Anderson were not near their primes.
 
The Witcher said:
BJ and Anderson were not near their primes.
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Actually, he fought BJ when BJ was fresh off of KO'ing Matt Hughes and fighting Jon Fitch to a draw. And when he fought Anderson Silva, it was fresh off of his pair of fights with Chris Weidman, where he'd lost by fluke punch and leg break and people still thought Weidman's result was lucky.
 
EGarrett said:
Actually, he fought BJ when BJ was fresh off of KO'ing Matt Hughes and fighting Jon Fitch to a draw. And when he fought Anderson Silva, it was fresh off of his pair of fights with Chris Weidman, where he'd lost by fluke punch and leg break and people still thought Weidman's result was lucky.
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Exactly. Not in their primes.
 
Anybody who pulls off a gogoplata in MMA then subsequently tests positive for marijuana metabolites goes down as a legend in my book.
 
Hazuki Ryo said:
Not trying to compare him to actual WW cause that was a different time, but how good was Nick ?

We all have in mind his KO of Lawler (which was a bit of a weird win), his fight against Gomi, Condit, GSP, but apart from them did he really fight a tought opposition ?

I have Sakurai, Noons, Gomi, Tibau, Shamrock, Lawler as his best wins
Click to expand...
He was fantastic. I feel his ground game was underrated.

He has two of the most exciting fights I have seen, Cyborg and Daley

I thought he fought bravely against Anderson though it was an odd fight.

To eat that many punches though to showcase your cardio is a crazy choice.
 
Very good but easy to frustrate and game plan for so I guess it’s a bit of a paradox. In a straight firefight tho there’s not many who could beat him
 
Don't forget his win over Zaromskis as well, Marius had just been murdering people in Dream and Nick toyed with him and put him away.
Even the Scott Smith fight, people will laugh but Scott was just a couple of fights removed from those two brawls with Lawler, and a couple of crazy KO wins, but again, Nick went in there with no fear and did what he wanted.

So many fun fights over the years, Strikeforce Nick Diaz was not to be fucked with
 
Nick Diaz doesn't have a who's who of killers on his record, I'll give you that.

That said, the Welterweight division used to be a lot weaker than what it is today so you cannot really compare apples to apples here.

I also believe that the scoring used to be a little different and has matured greatly in recent years. I remember watching many Nick Diaz fights which I thought he clearly won, but because his opponent got him down a few times they heavily scored it in the favor of the wrestler. Parisyan, Sanchez and Sherk all come to mind.

Also, you have to remember that he didn't truly lose for almost 6 years (I don't count the KJ Noons fight stopped by a doctor at the end of the first round).

Zarmoskis, Sakurai and Daley were all very dangerous fighters also, and were all top 10-15 at the weight at some point in their career.

Nick will never go down as a top 3-5 Welterweight of all-time, but neither will Tito Ortiz or Chuck Liddell at Light Heavyweight, doesn't mean that they weren't great for their time.
 
Beat Lawler Gomi BJ Penn Shamrock Zaromskis Daley Sakurai.

Entertaining fighter in and out of the cage, and he didn't even like the media.

Shows how lame some these fame hungry fighters are like Colby & Kevin Lee. Nick was 10x as entertaining without even trying.
 
He's never been that good against against top level fighters who are willing to fight him smart.

The best W's on his resume are against fighters who were willing to brawl - Daley, Lawler, Gomi.

There's also the win against WW Penn, nothing to scoff at but that fight went as one would predict - gets boxed up for a round then takes over as Penn slows down.
 
If you're going strictly from a record or accomplishment standpoint then yeah he wasn't great, good but not great. However, what people love about Nick was the fact he was actually trying to finish people and had that kill-or-be-killed mentality. He was very introspective and honest when he spoke and although he sometimes had trouble articulating what he was saying you could sense wisdom when he verbalized his thoughts. I enjoyed the whole stoner-gangster shtick that the UFC so often tried parade to the masses but that was only a fraction of Nick's personality, he's a lot more complex than people give him credit for. On top of all that he gave us some of the most exciting fights of all time, Gomi and Daley being 2 of my personal favorites.
 
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