These were the words spoken by Nick Diaz (26-7-1NC) after his unanimous decision victory (29-28, 29-27, 29-28) over B.J. Penn (16-8-2) Saturday night in the main event of UFC 137.
Using constant pressure and his pitter patter boxing technique, Diaz was able to out strike Penn and tire him out to pick up the win and the fight of the night bonus.
Diaz was the aggressor the entire fight, and by the middle of the second round Penn was visibly gassed, hurt and in survival mode but Diaz never stopped coming.
Conditioning was the main x-factor for the fight as Penn could not handle Diaz’ pace and took punch after punch as he was caught up on the cage. Diaz’ reach was also a problem for Penn, as Diaz had a four inch reach advantage and used his length to keep Penn on the outside and continuously batter his head and body without ever being in danger. Tiring and wearing Penn out, Penn was essentially target practice for Diaz and was busted up due to Diaz' relentless attack.
It was a brilliant performance from Diaz, since Penn was never handled like that on the feet inside the cage before. Although, Penn fought like a warrior and never went down from the punches, he was thoroughly beaten up and left with a severely black and blue eye, contemplating retirement at the end.
Stylistically, the matchup is a fight made in heaven since Diaz is the ultimate antagonist and would counter GSP’s clean cut, good guy persona. Although, past opponents like Josh Koscheck played a similar role to GSP, Diaz has a much better technical all-around game and is the only person in the division I could see dethroning the Welterweight Champion.
Diaz has proven time and time again that he is one of the best pound for pound fighters in the world and now that he is in the UFC will finally get the credit he deserves. B.J. Penn is not an opponent you run through and Diaz was able to do it with ease.
Now, Febuary 4th 2012 in Las Vegas, Diaz has earned himself a Welterweight title shot against GSP in the mega UFC Superbowl event.
GSP was originally slated to fight Carlos Condit at the event, but Condit has agreed to step aside and will fight another opponent at the same event. Normally soft spoken and polite, GSP was fired up and said about Diaz "he is the most disrespectful human being I've ever met, and I'm going to put the worst ass beating you've ever seen on him in the UFC."
I assure you Diaz will bring his A-game and come Feb. 4th in one of the biggest fights of 2012, there's a good chance we will have a new UFC Welterweight Champion.
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