“Where you at, m———–?”
–Nick Diaz
In 2012, Stockton became the largest American city ever to file for bankruptcy. Five years before, the city was hit hard by the country’s economic crisis–by 2008 more than 13 percent of all Stockton residents were unemployed. Ironically Stockton, a city that many Americans would prefer to imagine doesn’t exist, calls herself “The All-American City.”
You won’t hear Nicholas Robert Diaz pretending that he’s from some nice, cushy California suburb. In every post-fight interview, win or lose, he is bound to mention the mean streets of his home–not always with pride, but with a sort of frustrated sympathy. He resents the fact that no one seems to care for places like Stockton and, likewise, people like him. Like the city of his birth, Diaz is an easy target for derision, and yet many fight fans feel themselves drawn to him. There’s an inexorable magnetism–an enigmatic charisma at the heart of Nick Diaz–that makes him the scowling center of his own fascinating world.
Some of us love him, some of us hate him, and some of us, for the good name of our still-growing sport, would rather act as if he doesn’t even exist.
So I guess that makes Nick Diaz the All-American Fighter.
STOCKTON STICK & MOVE
Diaz’s fighting style is every bit as delphian as his personality–or perhaps inseparable from it. Unlike his impending opponent Anderson Silva, the spiteful bravado for which Nick is best known–the bird-flips and the b—–slaps–belies rather than emphasizes the true skill behind his approach. It’s easy to think of Diaz as a one-note joke and forget that he is actually a fiercely effective martial artist. At the heart of his style is the fundamental technique of all good boxing: the jab. Diaz’s is dangerous because, as with many of his punches, he understands its potential as both a weapon and a tool.
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1. Diaz stands with his weight back, left hand loaded.
2. He steps toward Takanori Gomi with a jab to the mouth.
3. As Gomi backs up, Diaz sticks another jab in his face, forcing him upright.
4. Nick hop-steps forward, still keeping his weight back as he advances. Gomi is now leaning back with his feet out of position–nowhere left to go.
5. Diaz measures his target with another pawing jab . . .
6. . . . and then sends his weight forward into a clean left hand to Gomi’s jaw.
7. The Pride lightweight champion goes reeling all the way to the ropes.
Diaz is, above all else, a rhythm fighter. Given space and time to work, he will fight in a seemingly endless crescendo, constantly moving forward and adding more and more strikes behind his pawing right jab with each assault. Momentum is the name of the game, and Diaz’s focus on combination punching means that the more defensive movements his opponent is forced to make in succession, the more likely Diaz is to land his third, fourth, or fifth punch.
Though he was largely dominated by the champion’s wrestling, Diaz managed to find some considerable success on the feet when he fought Georges St-Pierre. At first GSP seemed to have every advantage, as he picked Diaz off with powerful straight jabs, but the more time the two spent together on the feet, the more Diaz began to pull ahead. Building momentum, he piled more and more offense on the champion until suddenly his defense just wasn’t good enough anymore.
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1. Diaz marches forward, circling with Georges St-Pierre.
2. Just as against Gomi, he leads with a jab, shuffles forward . . .
3. . . . and then lands another.
4. St-Pierre is forced to go back on his bicycle, and he circles to Diaz’s right.
5. Nick steps toward him, and this time puts a left hand behind his jab, which doesn’t appear to land clean.
6. Still, the champ is forced to circle and reset once again.
7. This time Diaz touches St-Pierre with his jab.
8. This follow-up left hand is slipped . . .
9. . . . but Diaz whips his weight back and lands two right hooks as St-Pierre tries to counter.
10. The champion goes reeling off-balance from the shots.
The prevailing line of thought is that Nick, along with his brother Nate, doesn’t move laterally. This isn’t strictly true. In fact, Diaz will stay in front of a circling opponent all day long, side-stepping with them to prevent escape. It is during his attacks that his opponents have the opportunity to evade, as the Stocktonian’s onslaughts are almost entirely linear, his feet carrying him inexorably forward as he builds one punch off of another.
Opportunity is no guarantee of success, however. It takes a highly disciplined opponent to consistently evade Diaz’s attacks, and with each failed attempt Diaz’s confidence grows, and his aggression with it. Despite the linear nature of his offensive footwork, he is more than happy to put wide, stinging hooks at the end of a combination, deceptively powerful punches that catch anything in a wide arc before him even as they allow him to pull his head back out of the range of his opponent’s counters, as St-Pierre learned in Frame 10 above. Of the eighteen men who have tried to stick to a gameplan and deny the ever-mounting Diaz swarm since 2006, only two have succeeded, and neither of them was able to thwart him entirely.
Bloody Elbow’s John Nash once compared Nick Diaz to Daniel Mendoza, and while the analogy isn’t perfect, Diaz does seem to belong to some ancient era of bareknuckle fighting. Too primal for a mere five-round fight, Diaz seems purpose-built for an era when championship bouts lasted 20 rounds, or until one man couldn’t continue.
CLINCH ‘EM UP
Ultimately, regardless of the opponent, Diaz ends up in the clinch, the natural result of his relentless aggression. Though it’s Anderson Silva who possesses the most vaunted clinch in MMA, Diaz is no slouch in a tie-up, and does an excellent job of wearing his opponent down at close range.
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1. Diaz and St-Pierre compare collar ties as Diaz controls St-Pierre’s right hand with his own.
2. Yanking the champion’s wrist down, Diaz shoots a knee to his sternum.
3. Keeping his forehead tight to St-Pierre’s, Diaz blocks an attempted punch from St-Pierre with his right forearm across his solar plexus.
4. Pulling St-Pierre toward himself, Diaz smashes a right hook over the top and into the champ’s jaw.
5. This is followed by a slapping left hook to the body . . .
6. . . . which is followed by a cleaner copy from the right hand.
7. Finally, a left uppercut to the gut forces St-Pierre to relinquish his grip on Diaz’s neck.
8. Diaz spits in derision as St-Pierre gives ground.
Diaz is shockingly strong in the clinch, and uses his long arms to good effect, wrapping punches around behind his opponent’s elbows to find their vulnerable ribs, or over their shoulders to hit the temple, or the jawline, or the back of the head. This mauling method is enough to wear down even legendarily tough opponents, and Diaz is capable of a surprising level of craft when it comes to grips and strikes, particularly when he has his opponent pushed against the fence or ropes.
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1. Mashing his forehead into the cheek of BJ Penn, Diaz bangs away at his ribs with his right hand.
2. Penn pummels his right arm in over Diaz’s left elbow, looking for an underhook to spin himself off of the fence . . .
3. . . . but Diaz is quick to crush a tight overhook in toward his own ribs, collapsing Penn’s new grip and denying him any leverage with which to make his escape.
4. Quickly, Diaz pummels himself, apparently going for an underhook of his own . . .
5. . . . but instead of going for the grip wholesale, he attempts a knee to the body, which Penn blocks using his own shin.
6. Undeterred, Diaz throws another knee, this one to Penn’s thigh.
7. Now Penn starts fighting for the hook again.
8. Diaz lets him, and elects to punch instead, snapping his left hand again and again into Penn’s cheek.
9. While BJ is focused on stopping Diaz’s left arm, the Stocktonian raises his right leg . . .
10. . . . and smashes his right knee, Thai-style, into Penn’s ribs.
Diaz’s opponents have many opportunities to avoid being trapped against the fence, should they choose to take advantage of them, but this does not explain the actual reality of a Nick Diaz fight. In the cage with him, opponents can sense the raw fury that drives him. They seem to feel it with each punch. Diaz’s notorious slapping style of boxing is curiously, even inexplicably effective. Whippy, half-assed punches connect with surprising impact; counters that should separate a man from his senses prompt Diaz to spit, and curse, and return with renewed vigor.
In his return to the UFC, Diaz fought the similarly scrappy BJ Penn. Penn took the first round with his technically sound boxing, but Diaz was wearing on him by the end. Penn was starting to tire, as all Diaz opponents do eventually. The second round started competitive, but Diaz slowly began to pull ahead. And just as he sensed that Penn was breaking, he did something that few other fighters would do: he let Penn hit him. Invited him to do so, offering his forehead as a target, and even butting his head into Penn’s jabs. It was the beginning of the end, and by the final bell fans around the world agreed that they had never seen Penn so thoroughly beaten, or broken.
As he prepares to fight Anderson Silva January 31st, many expect the former middleweight champion to wipe the floor with Diaz. As MMA fans like to put it, Diaz was already “exposed” in his last two losses–the flaws in his style laid bare by Carlos Condit, who became interim welterweight champ with the win, and Georges St-Pierre, who beat Condit right after to reaffirm his rightful claim to the throne.
But really, it’s okay if you don’t think that Diaz has what it takes. He’s used to it. He must expect it by now. And while we’re focused on his slapping, scowling, s—-talking ways, Nick Diaz will be slowly but surely wearing the 39 year-old former champion down, fighting tirelessly, through pain and blood and exhaustion until one of them breaks. Given enough time and enough punches, they always do.
Be scared, homie.
For more analysis, be sure to check out Heavy Hands, the only podcast dedicated to the finer points of face-punching. Today’s new episode is an entire hour dedicated to the respective styles of Anderson Silva and Nick Diaz, and a breakdown of the many ways that their fight could play out come Saturday, January 31st.