UFC Welterweight division needs Nick Diaz

Not really if you actually put those wins into perspective. How many wins does Nick have against a top 10 fighter in their prime? Paul Daley is probably his best win at Welterweight when you really think about it. Granted he's better than his resume suggests, but that does impact how he's rated in the history books.

 

Gomi is a Lightweight... Nick is a fairly big Welterweight who has campaigned at Middleweight. That's just a weight bully beating a much smaller fighter.

Like I said... Penn had no business being at Welterweight anymore. It's an ok win but hardly a great one. Nick also got his had boxed off until BJ gassed. Another win against a much smaller man.

That was Lawler early in his career.... Long before he accomplished anything of relevance, he would go on to have a pretty inconsistent career until finally putting things together a couple of years ago.

Like I said you need to actually apply context to these wins and not just take them at face value... When you do they're far from great.

 

Well go ahead and consider wins over much smaller men or a green Lawler "great" I just don't see how you can... Those wins don't stand up as "great" under any sense of scrutiny that I can think of, they're only that way at face value. You see things differently but can never offer valid reasons like I am....

 

Yeah Gomi was a beast in his prime. I wouldn't put Nick in that same category as Jones in that regard, he didn't really exploit his superior reach that much in fights, he generally liked to mix things up at mid range. Wasn't particularly strong either. He relied mostly on better technique, cardio and toughness to win fights.

 

Dude he boiled down to LW to beat up on much smaller fighters, how is it not the same thing? It definitely detracts a bit from the win. Gomi is not even that big of a LW. This was definitely Diaz being a weight bully.

 

Lawler was a pretty solid win. At the time he was a really hyped up MFS product who was expected to destroy Nick, the major career struggles didn't start for Lawler until he went to strikeforce years later. KO'd him for the first time until Woodley turned the trick nearly a decade later.

 

It's not the same thing. One guy has an 84 inch reach with super long legs and lives and dies on the outside with his teeps, oblique kicks and eye pokes. Nick liked to fight in close negating any reach advantage, and he physically was a pretty weak guy. Gomi was manhandling him in clinches until he gassed out.

 

"Not the same thing" Maybe not entirely... But still a valid comparison. The fact that Nick who a massive WW boiled down to take on a small LW definitely detracts from the win. You can't seriously argue that it's as good as a real LW like Penn, Hellboy or Aurelio beating him?

 

From a P4P perspective yeah that win isn't as good as Aurelio's over Gomi or Penn's or Hansen's (even though they fought pre-prime Gomi). But just as a fighter in general, the Jones comparison isn't fair. His victories weren't dependant on him bending the rules to take advantage of huge size over his opponents with underhanded tactics.

 

Nick Diaz let's look at noteworthy wins of his:

Jackson
Lawler
Gomi
Noons
Zaromskis
Sakurai
Daley
Penn
Shamrock

Losses that could have gone his way

Parisyan
Condit
Hironaka

Losses that were avenged

Jackson
Noons

Losses to genuinely better people than he (as in accepted as being greater by everyone)

GSP
Anderson
Sherk

Losses that are rightly held against him (as in these aren't considered greater than him)

Sanchez
Riggs

For me he's clearly a great WW. That isn't beyond any real dispute for me. Some of his wins have an asterisk but some of his losses have one as well.

I don't think it's debatable that Nick is greater than Nate, not imo anyways.

Clear arguments for greater WW fighters:
GSP
Hughes
Sakuraba

Fighters you can debate his greatness against

Gracie
Lawler
Shields
Woodley

Fighters I think he clearly surpassed

Miletich
Newton

So for me he has to be amongst the top 10 WW fighters ever. Somewhere between 4 and 8 for my money.

 

Definitely a top 10 alltime WW, even his diehard haters would have to admit that. Anybody who thinks Nate is better than Nick is off their rocker, that or they haven't followed their careers for very long.

 

Nick might be the more talented one, but Nate has achieved more and has a better resume.