Would a prime Diego Sanchez be a top LW today?

[MMAandBOXINGfan]

Yeah, alot of those are elite fighters who continued to evolve with sport but those are few and far in between.
This sport s infancy isnt like nfl,mlb, NBA where you can make comparisons.

For the most part today's "prime fighters" would wallop 10-12 years ago " prime fighter"( besides the few exceptions)Its quite common sense and layman.

Look at where Edgar was during his reign at lw-champ .That same Edgar would get thrashed by today's top dozen lws-
The same prime Penn would get whooped by top 25.

ok

 

[HHJ]

i think your misunderstanding me a bit. i never though too highly of him, but he certainly went down hill when he embraced the brawler mentality.

Could be he couldnt fight the way he used to,and is making do what he has left.

 

[Franklin U.]

ok

I hate to sound uppity but I love it when I obviously know more about this than doggers like you .

 

[Tuf_guy]

Sure thats how it happened.

Its crazy how people really believe that he puposely doesnt spam 200 takedowns anymore.

He became convinced that boxing could work in MMA when most doubted it. Had some success on the feet. He also had a little success there. You basically just said "I don't agree" with no support for your stance.
If you think it's because he couldn't take people down that he abandoned grappling, I guarantee that if he put his mind to it, he could've improved enough to remain/once again become a serious threat to take guys down.
If you argue the BJ fight, same shit. BJ easily was one of the best at TDD in those days.
He was standing and banging for many years. He came to the UFC during the time when that became encouraged.

I'm pretty confident "sure that's how it happened" for the majority of grapplers who decided they'd become boxers/kickboxers instead of honing their takedowns and adding setups.
Or are we going with the staph infection as the cause of Diego falling in love with brawling?

 

[MMAandBOXINGfan]

I hate to sound uppity but I love it when I obviously know more about this than doggers like you .

Well I definitely don't know what in the hell uppity means but ok if you say so then yes you know everything. I hope you're proud of yourself.

 

[HHJ]

He became convinced that boxing could work in MMA when most doubted it. Had some success on the feet. He also had a little success there. You basically just said "I don't agree" with no support for your stance.
If you think it's because he couldn't take people down that he abandoned grappling, I guarantee that if he put his mind to it, he could've improved enough to remain/once again become a serious threat to take guys down.
If you argue the BJ fight, same shit. BJ easily was one of the best at TDD in those days.
He was standing and banging for many years. He came to the UFC during the time when that became encouraged.

I'm pretty confident "sure that's how it happened" for the majority of grapplers who decided they'd become boxers/kickboxers instead of honing their takedowns and adding setups.
Or are we going with the staph infection as the cause of Diego falling in love with brawling?

Diego is insane but he isnt retarded. What he is doing isnt boxing,and he knows it. He knows that when he is fighting guys like giblert and so on that he is getting lit up in every exchange. His only saving grace is that he is so relentless in his charges that it starts to effect his opponents psyche. No one with the skills diego had would do that to themselves unless they had no other choice.

 

[Franklin U.]

Well I definitely don't know what in the hell uppity means but ok if you say so then yes you know everything. I hope you're proud of yourself.

No, I certainly dont know everything and you don't know what uppity means ??

 

[eternaldarkness]

Could be he couldnt fight the way he used to,and is making do what he has left.

it could be. but it seems like he just gave up trying to take people down when he though he was a striker.

 

[MMAandBOXINGfan]

No, I certainly dont know everything and you don't know what uppity means ??

up·pi·ty
ˈəpədē/
adjective
informal

1. self-important; arrogant.
   "an uppity sister-in-law"
   synonyms: arrogant, snobbish, hoity-toity, snooty, pretentious, bumptious, full of oneself, puffed up, conceited, pompous, self-assertive, overbearing, cocky, cocksure, impertinent, haughty, self-important, superior, presumptuous, overweening, uppish, high and mighty

nope I didn't know what it meant. It sounds funny to type it let alone say it. Anyways I googled it and yes yes you definitely are an uppity one.

Did I use it right?

 

[HHJ]

it could be. but it seems like he just gave up trying to take people down when he though he was a striker.

"Seems"

 

[Franklin U.]

up·pi·ty
ˈəpədē/
adjective
informal

1. self-important; arrogant.
   "an uppity sister-in-law"
   synonyms: arrogant, snobbish, hoity-toity, snooty, pretentious, bumptious, full of oneself, puffed up, conceited, pompous, self-assertive, overbearing, cocky, cocksure, impertinent, haughty, self-important, superior, presumptuous, overweening, uppish, high and mighty

nope I didn't know what it meant. It sounds funny to type it let alone say it. Anyways I googled it and yes yes you definitely are an uppity one.

Did I use it right?

Lol- you correctly used it in a sentence but not in reference to me.I said I hate to sound uppity (hate to sound being the operative words)
You now can look up "operative " and come back and use in sentence ( see - now that was uppity and kind of rude on my end.I apologize. )

 

[Franklin U.]

....and just for the record, the only special thing about " prime" Diego was him being an exciting fighter and his personality. Today he'd be outgunned and outsized by today's top 15 155ers[ he'd be a significant underdog to them]
This going on t.s theory

 

[Gambit MMA]

hed be lower top 10 imo like 7-10 ranked

 

[MMAandBOXINGfan]

Lol- you correctly used it in a sentence but not in reference to me.I said I hate to sound uppity (hate to sound being the operative words)
You now can look up "operative " and come back and use in sentence ( see - now that was uppity and kind of rude on my end.I apologize. )

Ok now you are being uppity.

 

[Tuf_guy]

Diego is insane but he isnt retarded. What he is doing isnt boxing,and he knows it. He knows that when he is fighting guys like giblert and so on that he is getting lit up in every exchange. His only saving grace is that he is so relentless in his charges that it starts to effect his opponents psyche. No one with the skills diego had would do that to themselves unless they had no other choice.

Diego isn't/wasn't the sharpest knife, but he he wasn't the only one who fell into the "put on a show for the fans" mindset. Fighters don't always stick to their strengths.
Andy Wang had skills on the ground and ignored them and ruined his shot, Gurgel did it, even Tito who did fight on the ground acted as if he knew no submissions whatsoever most of the time (even against a green Cote).
I agree Diego's window closed at some point a ways back, but he was brawling for a really long time, and was getting praise for it. I missed some fights, but don't remember the last one that went to the ground because he took the other guy down.
The best thing for him, imo would have been going to college and wrestling after highschool. He would be behind his early level of subs, but he would have learned to take down better wrestlers. TDD is on another level in college.

But fighters got better at TDD while many also got relatively worse at takedowns when practically everybody tried to be a striker. Maybe they lost confidence in their wrestling, Idunno. Diego was part of that before a decline of his abilities.

 

[SixStringSeal]

Diego was, is and always will be a beast on the ground. The problem is that he left Jackson's and tried to change up his whole approach mid-career. I feel like he did this because he was trying to make himself more "well rounded".. but instead ended up abandoning his strengths and favoring something he was still trying to learn and adapt to.

Regardless he's got a ton of heart and I'm super grateful for all of the fights he put on.

 

[xentreos]

He’d have a similar career imo , flashes of being elite but just not quite the cream of the crop as far as all time lws

 

[Sano]

"The Nightmare" was a beast, "The Dream", not so much.

 

[brucelee619]

In his younger years his wrestling and ground game was top notch. Remember the beatdown he put on Josh Rafferty?

He had some spectacular moments in the standup as well:

Diego was a beast.

Bwaaaaaah!! U remember his fight w/ bj penn. amateur standup. Shadow boxing

 

[Spookv]

BJ? but beat Nick Diaz on the ground where he shined at the time. Diego wanted to be a striker and ditched his relentless ground game, thats where it went wrong.

I'm just quoting what I've been reading around these parts lately about Bj Penn.

About Diego, he couldn't do nothing or show his ground game because Bj completely nullified every TD attempt.