St. Pierre vs. Diaz

This is the official discussion thread for St. Pierre vs. Diaz. Let's see what you've got.

No way Diaz is bigger than Fitch.

Nick Diaz is one of the easiest people in MMA to take down.  I don't think he ever worked on his anti-TD defense because of his confidence in his ground game.

And once Maia had him on the ground, Maia's infinitely superior ground game would result in the win.  Nick is famous for being unsubmitable, but you don't win by that, as Fitch proved.

Being on the defensive for the entire fight is a guaranteed recipe to lose.  

For the rest of his career, as long as Nick remains in the UFC WW division, his touted trash-talking will not serve him well.  Condit, Hendricks, MacDonald and Maia will prove to be immune to Nick's crap-talk.

And even if he moved up to MW, Anderson Silva is also immune to it.  If Silva could ignore Sonnen, who is the acknowledged master of us all in this particular gift, he sure as hell could ignore Nick.

He will taunt and bait, they will completely laugh it off and ignore, and Nick will come off looking like a loud-mouthed punk trying to gain an edge.  But to no avail.  Exercise in futility.  The UFC happens to have a pretty mature group of WWs at the moment.  GSP, Condit, Hendricks, MacDonald, Maia.  Nick's famous mouth has run its course.  Thank God.  He only does it because he doesn't know any other way.

* Edited at 03.20.2013, 11:49 AM ET *

Would have to disagree with you that Diaz is one of the easiest people to take down. Granted GSP made it look easy but he makes it look easy to take anyone down.

According to Fight Metric here is some take down defense numbers

Nick Diaz 60%
Condit 37%
Dan Hardy 35%
Rick Story 59%
Diego Sanchez 53%
Paul Thiago 54%

And that's just some numbers from a few WW's.

@poir I agree Diaz TDD is way underestimated, he may not have the best defense by a long shot but it´s definetly not one of the worst, lots of times he doesn´t even try to stop takedowns because of his excellent ground game, but when he does try he can stuff several takedowns. the fact that he could defend some takedowns against GSP prooves it.

According to fightmetric, Diaz defended 7 takedowns, Koscheck defended 4 Shields 1 and Condit 1, BJ in his last fight defended 3, and if you pay a little extra ttention to statistics, you can see who GSP had more respect for his striking in the amount of takedowns attempted in his last 8 fights:

Penn 7, Condit 8, Shields 3, Koscheck 9, Hardy 11, Alves 12, Diaz 16, Fitch 9

I know this isn´t fail proof, but I think it give us a good idea of which fighters GSP felt more comfortable standing with, and you can also see what kind of game GSP likes to play,.

btw he has 1 finish in all those fights

and just for kicks here is another wrestling based fighter

Velazquez  attempted TD´s

JDS   33, Silva 1, JDS 0, Lesnar 2, Big Nog 0, Rothwell 5, Kongo 10, Stojnic 4

He has 5 fnishes 2 decisions and 1 loss by KO

I know being a HW have much more devastating punches and a bigger chance to get the KO/TKO but you can easily compare Cain and GSP agressiveness on the ground and see a whole different game

 

 

@mmowm

Umm, yes he is. You should take another look at them. Nick is bigger in every way possible. He is taller, broader, longer arms ect. Nick also weights more.  John Fitch cuts from the low 180's. Nick is cutting from around low 190's.

* Edited at 03.20.2013, 2:29 PM ET *

Why are we comparing stats? They're useless here, Nick Diaz has fought only strikers for the past 7 years, a 60% TDD against mediocre strikers is a sad stat.

The reason why he was able to defend so many GSP shots is because GSP was sick. GSP was easily the worst I've ever seen him in his title run in this fight (he was excellent against Jake Shields until Shields ripped his eye out and even then, I still think GSP won round 5).

when george losses to big rig it will be b/c of JH's epic beard.

shut up.

One of the best movies I've ever seen, that.

Nick Diaz's wrestling is horrible and he would probably lose a fight to any wrestler who has decent submission defense.

Before GSP, the last real wrestler he fought was Sherk years ago and he lost.

There's a reason why he received the Houston Alexander and kickboxer treatment fighting mostly guys who are willing to stand and trade and not use superior wrestling to take him down and grind out a decision win against him.

@Legacy,

I strongly disagree with the conclusion you are reaching based on GSP take down attempts.  Because Frankly Condit is the best striker out of them. So take down attempts does not = who GSP felt most comfortable on the feet with. There were far more variables into play then that.

edit: Thanks Mike. You are right.

* Edited at 03.20.2013, 9:05 PM ET *

It was ItFigures!

A man of his word.Check your comments Franklin.

Thanks Mike. I honestly completely forgot about personal messages. I so rarely use them i forget about them some times. Thanks for the reminder. You are 100% right. He is a man of his word.

I figured you would have discussed the bet through comments at some point.

You were dead on. We did not discuss it before hand, but he sent me a comment right after the fight. I just completely forgot about personal messages. Thanks a lot for the reminder. I always miss my messages, because I just forget about them. Wish there was some way that we were alerted of them.

You can change your settings so you get emails whenever you get a new comment.

dam i did not know that. Were can i do this?  Also I like the avatar. Ed, Edd And Eddie for the win.