STRIKEFORCE: Diaz crushes Smith

Written by Jim Murphy   |   Sunday, June 07 2009

Nick Diaz heads to the cage for battle.  With his dominating win over Scott Smith, Diaz has to be considered among the 'pound for pound' best fighters in MMA. (Photo: Showtime)

During his prime pro wrestling legend Ric Flair would frequently boast “Like it or don’t like it but get used to it because it’s the best thing going today”.  Maybe it’s time that Nick Diaz adopt the ‘Nature Boy’s’ classic catch phrase.   The mercurial pride of Stockton, California made a compelling case for ‘pound for pound’ supremacy as he put on a striking clinic against tough Scott Smith before ending the fight in the third round via rear naked choke in the highlight match of Strikeforce’s card at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis. 

Much like Russian fighting god Fedor Emelianenko, who was in attendance to promote his August 1 Affliction: Trilogy bout against Josh Barnett, there’s not really a good way to fight Diaz.  You can’t beat Diaz standing up, as Smith quickly learned.  Smith landed a few power shots, one which opened a cut on Diaz’s easy to bleed browline, but paid the price as he ate multiple punches for every one he got off.   Diaz doesn’t have a lot of power, but he’s got great handspeed and boxing technique—he throws the proverbial ‘punches in bunches’ and the accumulation eventually started to wobble Smith.   Diaz won the first round with his effective aggression and striking precision, and dominated the second round culminating with a flurry in the final seconds that send Smith to the canvas.  THE SAVAGE SCIENCE scored round one 10-9 Diaz and gave him a 10-8 edge in the second. 

Diaz closed the fight in spectacular fashion in the third round—almost flaunting his boxing virtuosity by quickly switching back and forth between southpaw and orthodox stances, he floored Smith with a perfectly placed shot to the liver within the first minute.  At this point, he took his opponent’s back and quickly cinched in a rear naked choke that forced the double tough Smith to tap out. 

As we alluded to above, there’s simply not a good way to fight Diaz.  While his striking skills were on prominent display here the frightening thing about Diaz is that he’s even more dangerous on the ground.   To put this into context, he’s had a couple of professional boxing matches and if he wanted to devote himself to ‘the sweet science’ full time he’d be a formidable adversary for anyone.   On the ground, however, he’s among the best in the world.  Diaz is one of only three Cesar Gracie Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belts in the world (Jake Shields and David Terrell are the other two) and his ability to control his opponent on the ground and end fights via submission is insane. 

Diaz also has a street fighter’s mentality, which combined with his technical mastery makes for an almost perfect skill set for a MMA professional.  He’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of a cinder block which gives him the ‘killer instinct’ that the best fighters possess but his technical training has paradoxically taught him how to not be overly aggressive.  His only real weakness is that he clearly loves to mix it up—on several occasions after he was tagged with solid punches by Smith he dropped his hands and told his opponent to ‘bring it on’ which is a dangerous thing to do against someone with one punch fight ending power. 

The fans in St. Louis gave Diaz a very enthusiastic reaction, which is something he’s starting to hear more and more of.  During his tenure in EliteXC they tried to cast him as a ‘heel’, but he’s got a decided ‘anti-hero’ appeal that resonates with a lot of fight fans.  He might not have the innate likability of a Forrest Griffin, but if nothing else he’s completely free of pretense.  Diaz is a completely genuine person and makes no apologies for who he is or how he lives.  He’s fought his entire life to prosper and survive, and he’s become one of the best in the world at it.  Even if you dislike his personality, there’s simply no way that you can dismiss Diaz’s heart, tenacity and awesome technical prowess. 

In the main event, Diaz’s training partner Jake Shields defeated ‘Ruthless’ Robbie Lawler via submission early in the first round.  Shields usually fights at 170, and early in the fight it was evident that Lawler was much more comfortable at the 182 pound ‘catchweight’.  Shields was stuffed on several takedown attempts, and was clearly rocked by Lawler’s power punches on several occasions.  It looked to be a vivid example of the time honored fighting cliché that ‘a good big man will always beat a good little man’ until Shields took a chance and found an opening to go for a guillotine choke.  He cinched the submission in tight, and Lawler tried to ‘power bomb’ his way out of the predicament but to no avail.  After failing to loosen Shields’’ vice like grip, Lawler was forced to tap out at the 2:02 mark of the opening round and lost a fight that he was completely controlling until that point.

The evening’s most shocking turn of events took place in the heavyweight special attraction between Andrei Arlovski and Brett Rogers.  Rogers was a hot young prospect in Elite XC before that promotion’s demise, and had been groomed as an eventual challenger to their street fighting media magnet Kimbo Slice.  He never got to fight Slice, but ‘sliced’ through second tier competition like James Thompson and Obongo Humphrey to enter tonight’s contest with a 9-0 mark all by stoppage (8 KO’s, 1 tapout to strikes).  He was taking a huge step up in class against former UFC champion Arlovski, last seen against the best MMA competitor in the world, Fedor Emelianenko. 

Arlovski came out cautiously looking to ‘feel out’ his opponent, but Rogers had done his homework.  After a few seconds of feinting by both men Rogers suddenly pushed forward, throwing power shots in the process.  He forced Arlovski to the cage wall where he landed a devastating three punch combination that sent ‘The Pit Bull’ to the canvas in a heap.  Referee ‘Big John’ McCarthy immediately stepped over him and waved off the fight at the :22 second mark. 

With the stunning upset over a top level heavyweight, Rogers is now on the cusp of stardom.  He’s got a great story, until recently working at a Sam’s Club Tire Center before quitting within the past six months to devote his full effort to his fighting career.  In the prefight promo video, he indicated that Arlovski was ‘standing between himself and a new house for his family’.  Despite looking like a young Mr. T as “Clubber Lang” in Rocky III, Rogers has a refreshing humility though a moment of boasting provided some humor.   Asked by Gus Johnson in his postfight interview where he now sees himself in the heavyweight MMA foodchain, Rogers responded “I’m ready for anybody.”  At that moment, the camera cut to Fedor Emelianenko at cageside quick enough to catch the usually taciturn Russian fighting god giving a quick smirk as if to say ‘you’d be lucky to last a minute with me’. While a matchup with “The Last Emperor” isn’t immediately on the horizon for Rogers, he may be the next challenger for the Strikeforce heavyweight title currently held by Alistair Overeem.  Overeem was originally scheduled to appear on this card before a hand injury sustained in a bar fight forced him to withdraw. 

In the preliminary events of the live Showtime telecast, Joe Riggs easily outpointed veteran Phil Baroni en route to a unanimous decision victory.  After a competitive first round, Riggs dominated the rest of the fight with a hellacious power punching barrage though Baroni showed considerable toughness and an impressive ability to take a punch by staying on his feet throughout.   In the opening bout, Mike Whitehead’s superior conditioning proved the difference as he bested veteran Kevin Randleman by unanimous decision.

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