This article is the final part of a two-part series on the rematch between Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz. If you missed the first part where I broke down the styles of both men, you can find it here.
Thoughts On The First Fight:
Throughout the fight the story was one of Diaz’ lead hand beating McGregor to the punch. McGregor opened each round with kicks. However, as soon as it became clear that Diaz was going to stand in front of him and welcome the left hand in, McGregor began to abandon the rest of his game in favor of firing his left again and again. This meant that, again and again, McGregor hit shoulder, forehead, and other bony areas. He fatigued as the fight progressed. Diaz, after a feeling out process likely due to his lack of a training camp, began landing his right hand inside, around, and over McGregor’s left.
Working the Jab
Diaz soon began to build off his jab. He strung together second jabs, hooks or even his own left straight on afterwards. Because he was working with a fairly non committal but quick weapon like a jab; Diaz was forcing McGregor to react to it. At this point he would look to land his real hurting shot.
Sealing the Win
The end was sealed in the second round with what had become routine fashion for the fight at that point. Diaz’ jab landed on McGregor and he followed it up with his own left hand. He was able to build off the jab in the bread and butter 1-2 that every fighter learns in Day 1 striking. This is something that no Orthodox fighter would ever catch McGregor with.
Diaz landed two of these in quick succession to wobble the already tiring McGregor. After some additional pressure and punishment (both staples of the Diaz strategy once they have a man tired or hurt) McGregor shot a takedown while hurt and exhausted. Diaz quickly took his back and tapped him out.
To read that you would think that Diaz ran right over McGregor. In truth Nate Diaz looked far from unbeatable in this fight. Like every other fighter on the planet he has his strengths and he has his weaknesses. Those weaknesses have been common knowledge for a while now.
Diaz Weaknesses
His ringcraft has always left something to be desired. When opponents circle out and refuse to stand in front of him, his straight strikes become much less effective, and more importantly he has never really shown an effective counter to this, aside from throwing out his hands and firing off a few choice names that question his opponents masculinity.
Because he so heavily favors his boxing, he keeps his weight heavy on his lead leg, and in doing so becomes extremely susceptible to low kicks. While he is a danger off his back, he can be held down if his opponent is careful and, most importantly, not already exhausted. His boxing is obviously his strength, but his habit of looking to duck shots can lead him in to trouble both with kicks and uppercuts. McGregor highlighted all of these flaws perfectly at different points of the fight.
Taking Advantage
When he kicked at Diaz’ lead leg, he buckled it.
When he used his right hand as a lead uppercut, he landed his most effective strikes of the fight as he caught Diaz ducking, a tricky feat on someone so much taller than him.
After being taken down towards the end of the first, McGregor even did a good job of sweeping him and holding top position for the rest of the round.
McGregor’s Mistakes
The problem was that for most of the bout, McGregor was just looking for his left hand counter, as he always does. It was this insistence on standing on a straight line in front of Diaz and looking to land power shots, getting tagged with shorter punches and being made to miss all the while, that tired McGregor out, but if he simply looks to land less shots, he is only solving half the problem. Ineffective as they were in finishing the fight, McGregor’s left hand was all that stopped Diaz walking in on him, it kept Diaz cautious and allowed McGregor to push forward. If he simply looks to be ‘more efficient’ and land cleaner, but less frequently, he opens the door to being outstruck for the entire fight.
Final Thoughts:
McGregor’s path to victory lies in doling out some of the time and energy he reserves for his left hand, and investing it in his other tools. He can kick, he can move, and as he displayed against Max Holloway, he can be a smothering top player. While many will say McGregor needs to work his boxing and avoid the ground game like the plague, the fact of the matter is that in the amount of time he has it is unlikely that McGregor will develop in to a better conventional outfighter than Diaz, especially given Diaz’ reach and height advantage and experience boxing southpaws, while McGregor has shown he can kick with the best of them and hold a man down when he has too. What he has not shown is the desire to do so.
McGregor’s Training
Videos of McGregor’s training leading up to this fights show McGregor sparring with “long Southpaw boxers with good lead hands”. They do not show him working his kicks, his top control, or his wrestling. When he does spar with full MMA rules, McGregor can again be seen holding the center of the cage. He moves in straight lines and looks to land his left hand the majority of the time. In preparing specifically for Nate Diaz, McGregor seems determined to make this fight a boxing match. There is a quote floating around the internet that is attributed to the famous physicist Albert Einstein, and it goes something like this:
“the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
Fighting is not a math equation. Things happen in the cage that people cannot possibly account for. Maybe Diaz’ famously sturdy chin will finally crack under the strength of McGregor’s left hand. Maybe the newfound superstardom will lead to a lackluster training camp and a flat performance from Diaz. Perhaps he will twist his ankle in the middle of the first round and decide to call it quits. Maybe.
Stacking the Deck
Anything can happen in the fight game. If McGregor was trying to stack the deck against himself in the worst way possible, he couldn’t do a much better job of it. Now that makes his success all the more spectacular, if he does pull it off. However, if you had to point to Nate Diaz’ best path to victory, it would be by trying to make the fight as similar as possible to the first.
Main Photo
LAS VEGAS, NV – MARCH 5: Nate Diaz applies a choke hold to win by submission against Conor McGregor during UFC 196 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on March 5, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images)
