The recent wrestling takeover in the UFC was predicted by Nick Diaz over 10 years ago.
Over the last few years, wrestling has clearly become the most dominant martial art in the UFC with several of the promotion’s champions specialising in that aspect of the game.
During the last PPV, UFC 319, the dominance of wrestling was once again on show as Khamzat Chimaev utterly controlled Dricus Du Plessis to become the new middleweight champion.
And although wrestling has become such a dominant base in MMA recently, that hasn’t always been the case but one of the sport’s biggest ever stars Nick Diaz predicted it.
Diaz predicted a wrestling takeover 10 years ago during rant about scoring
Over the history of the UFC, many rules have been changed and added to improve the sport of MMA, and the unified scoring system is something that has been changed over the years too.
However, the scoring has always somewhat benefited those with a wrestling heavy fight style and that is something Diaz alluded to ahead of his UFC 158 fight against Georges St-Pierre.
“The way that mixed martial arts works right now, the way the scoring works, the way it’s geared towards wrestling, I don’t think it’s right for mixed martial arts,” Diaz said during the UFC 158 press conference.
“I think it nullifies the action, we want to see a lot of jiu-jitsu transitions, we want to see movement, if you can hold people and elbow, just like I’ve always said, I’m gonna have to create the same amount of space to punch down on you as the guy on the bottom is gonna need to make it back to his feet.
“But people rub down with their elbows the whole time and so that’s action so the refs not gonna stand it up. People should be called for stalling and they should get a point deducted for stalling, the ref should be yelling action,” Diaz continued.
Former UFC fighter agrees with Diaz scoring criticism as he makes admission
Although a large majority of the fanbase agrees with Diaz’s criticism of the scoring, it is something that will likely stay in the UFC for a while.
Former UFC fighter Zac Pauga recently commented on Diaz’s historical comments, with an admission about his only UFC win in four fights during his tenure.
“I hope this means more coming from someone who’s only UFC win was one of the worst fights in the promotion’s history. I was on the verge of being cut and knew Jordan (Wright) couldn’t stop me from holding him against the cage. Nick is completely right here,” Pauga said in a post on X.