Products You May Like
UFC ON FOX 17 VS. MICHAEL JOHNSON
https://ufcfightpass.com/video/41933/nate-diaz-vs-michael-johnson-ufc-fight-night
Everyone knows what happened after this fight and what it eventually led to, but the part that often gets forgotten or overlooked or left out when talking about it is that very few people expected things to play out the way they did.
Diaz hadn’t fought in a little over a year and look disinterested in his previous appearance, where he missed weight in a lopsided loss to Rafael Dos Anjos. Meanwhile, Johnson had never looked better, having rattled off wins over Joe Lauzon, Gleison Tibau, Melvin Guillard and Edson Barboza before landing on the wrong side of a highly questionable split decision verdict in a fight with Beneil Dariush.
Johnson was the favorite and won the opening round on all three scorecards, using swift movement and slick striking to race out to an early lead. But Diaz started to find his range and get loose midway through the round, hitting Johnson with a couple long jabs and clean shots that brought a smile to his face and made him start yapping at “The Menace” in typical Diaz fashion.
Early in the second, Diaz started utilizing his reach advantage to pick at Johnson and avoid return fire, getting into a rhythm where he clearly began to frustrate his opponent. As the significant strikes piled up, so too did the in-fight talking and gesticulating, with Diaz growing more confident as the fight wore on and the momentum shifted into his favor.
It’s not that Johnson wasn’t having any success either — he was tagging Diaz with quality shots here and there, but the popular pugilist from Stockton, California simply played them off as having no impact, drawing a roar from the crowd every time.
By the time the third round began, Diaz’s pace and volume had become too much for Johnson, who ate some big shots down the stretch in the second and had no answers in the final round. Diaz put it on him, making Johnson miss far more often than he landed and drawing him into an unwinnable boxing match against a high-volume fighter with significantly more left in the tank.
It was the best Diaz had looked in years, maybe ever, and made it clear that despite his lack of activity over the previous year, he was still a contender. When Joe Rogan stepped into the cage to speak with Diaz about his performance following the reading of the decision, Diaz cut one of the most memorable promos in UFC history, taking aim at Conor McGregor, the Irish superstar who claimed the featherweight title the previous weekend and was poised to challenge for the lightweight title in early 2016.
It was a great call-out, but one that felt far-fetched in the moment, as McGregor had big things brewing and Diaz had lost three of four before besting Johnson.
But then the MMA Gods intervened.
UFC 196 VS. CONOR MCGREGOR
https://ufcfightpass.com/video/40876/nate-diaz-vs-conor-mcgregor-ufc-196
If someone told you how this whole thing came together, you would think it was too perfect to have happened organically, but that’s exactly what happened.
McGregor, who won the featherweight title with a 13-second knockout win over Jose Aldo the weekend before Diaz called him out, was scheduled to challenge Rafael Dos Anjos for the lightweight title, but the champion broke his foot and was forced out of the UFC 196 bout just 10 days before the fight.
Diaz stepped in, and after a wild press conference where the two men traded insults and curse words, they stepped into the Octagon opposite one another on March 5, 2016.
McGregor was 7-0 in the UFC and the biggest star in the sport, fresh off an incredible performance in December and with the benefit of a full training camp, even if it was for a very different opponent. As great as Diaz had looked against Johnson in Orlando, he hadn’t been preparing for a fight, and now he was going to step in against one of the most talented strikers in the game on less than two weeks’ notice?
It was a brassy move that earned Diaz a ton of sway with fans, but once the fight began, McGregor was the aggressor, finding a home with several left hands early as he walked Diaz down, looking to finish things with a single blow. While Diaz was finding his range, McGregor was crashing home solid shots that opened up Diaz, causing crimson to run down the side of his face from the same region that would be his undoing against Jorge Masvidal several years later.
I was in attendance at the MGM Grand for this fight and I vividly remember writing early in the second round that it felt like McGregor was beginning to out-Diaz Nathan Diaz, as he swarmed him with volume and talked to him after every shot that landed.
But despite being busted up and bloodied, Diaz didn’t waver, returning fire, both verbally and with his fists, as McGregor clearly began to slow down. Just before the two-minute mark of the second frame, Diaz hit McGregor with a left hand that made him teeter and you immediately got the sense that something had changed.
Diaz marched forward, stinging McGregor again, backing him towards the fence while “The Notorious” one answered with tired arm punches that never came close to landing. McGregor offered a solid flurry of offense, but as soon as Diaz landed another two stiff blows, the Irishman shot for a panicked takedown, desperate to avoid taking any more damage on the feet.