Nick Diaz | MMA Training

My 10 Favourite MMA Fighters Of 2011

This is a feature I hope to start doing once a year. I watch quite a lot of Mixed Martial Arts so I thought I may as well talk about it sometimes as well. I know my site is supposed to be a MMA Training website but I figure a small amount of journalism dedicated to professional MMA wouldn’t hurt. It might even help improve the site.

To clarify I don’t buy into that “If they don’t fight in the UFC they aren’t worth ranking alongside UFC fighters bullshit a lot of other MMA websites peddle around”. It should be mentioned that a fair chunk of the aforementioned websites get paid by the UFC to write press about them. That is why a lot of websites seem to always take a pro-UFC stance. I’m happy to put any professional fighter from any promotion on my list.

10. Donald Corrone

Cowboy has had an amazing year so far (up until the end of it anyway). He started it off by beating British fighter Paul Kelly. He followed that up by beating Vagner Rocha, tapping out Charles Oliveira and finally besting Dennis Siver. It was only Nate Diaz that managed to derail his whirlwind year. Nevertheless Donald Corrone had a fantastic year in 2011 with 4 out of 5 wins. If he keeps winning he’ll surely be given a title shot in 2012.

09. Shinya Aoki

Shinya Aoki bounced back from an extremely disappointing 2010. Despite beating Tatsuya Kawajiri, Marcus Aurelio and Yokthai Sithoar, he dropped a decision to Gilbert Melendez and got knocked out by Yuichiro Nagashima in a DREAM/K-1 Special Rules bout. But in 2011 he has managed to submit Lyle Beerbohm, Rich Clementi and Rob McCullough using the exact same submission move which is a hybrid face bar and neck crank. Rob McCullough must have suspected what Aoki was going to do yet he couldn’t stop the BJJ phenom from doing what he wanted once the fight hit the ground. He topped off the year by beating Satoru Kitaoka by decision in DREAM’s new years eve show.

08. Dan Henderson

It’s been an eventful year for Hendo. First winning the Strikeforce Light-Heavyweight championship from Rafael Cavalcante. He followed that up by going up to heavyweight and knocking out Fedor Emelianenko in the first round. Something no one else has ever managed to do up until now. Dan Henderson then re-signed with the UFC and made his debut (is it classed as a debut if you have fought for them on two separate occasions previously?) against Shogun Rua, in what was one of the greatest MMA fights I’ve ever seen.

07. Edson Barboza

Probably the least known (along with Aoki) in my top 10 outside of the die hard MMA fans. Edson Barboza is a fearson Brazilian Muay Thai fighter with 6 of his current 9 wins coming via knock out. Did I also mention he’s had 25 wins as a professional Muay Thai fighter with 22 of them being Ko’s. He’s also a purple belt in BJJ so he’s rounding himself out well as a MMA fighter. His wins against Anthony Njokuani and Ross Pearson both earned him a fight of the night award. Expect big things from this guy in the future.

06. Anderson Silva

I’m sure anyone with a brain would have known I would include Anderson Silva on here somewhere. His Karate Kid-esq crane kick of Vitor Belfort could be a contender for knock out of the year. But his dominating performance and knock out of Yushin Okami, who was the last person to beat him showed that he will be champion for a long time unless Chael Sonnen manages to unseat him in a rematch of their 2010 slobberknocker.

05. Jake Ellenburger

I think no one would argue with Jake Ellenberger being included on this list with his two Ko’s and one decision in 2011. One of those included number one contender Jake Shields though Shields had just lost his father 3 weeks before so his head probably wasn’t 100% there for that fight. Though nothing should be taken away from Ellenberger who has had a fantastic year and must be only one or two wins from a welterweight title shot.

04. Carlos Condit

Carlos Condit hasn’t fought as much in 2011 as the other candidates on the list (especially Corrone) but his highlight reel knockout of Dong Hyun Kim is a legitimate contender for knockout of the year. He was supposed to face Georges St. Pierre at UFC 137 but an injury to GSP put that fight on ice. Now we hear that him and Nick Diaz will fight for the intrim welterweight champion. Condit is an extremely talented fighter and I believe he is more than a match for Nick Diaz. Mark my words it will be an entertaining fight!

03. Nick Diaz

What can I say about Nick Diaz that I haven’t said in the past. On one hand he is one of the most talented fighters in the welterweight division. On the other he is his own worst enemy. If we forget how he beat BJ Penn, he still had two incredibly memorable fights with Paul Daley and Cyborg Santos, who are both good competitors in their own right this year before the Penn fight. He was able to beat all three. That is why Diaz gets my number three position.

02. Jon Jones

Jon Jones has had quite a year. First he knocked out Ryan Bader, then won the UFC light heavyweight championship from Maurício Shogun Rua, and then successfully defended it against Quinton Rampage Jackson. The year wasn’t over yet though as Jones defended his championship again against Lyoto Machida. He submitted Machida in spectacular fashion with a modified guillotine choke to retain the belt. So to recap in the space of 12 months Jones has beaten 1 number one contender (Bader), won a championship belt and defeated three former champions (Rua, Jackson and Machida). In my opinion he now has a legitimate argument for being the number one pound-for-pound fighter in all of MMA. But I’ve only ranked him at number 2, so who will be number 1?

01. Frankie Edgar

Are you really surprised that this guy is my number one? He survived not one but two first round beatdowns at the hands of Gray Maynard, who is a much, much bigger fighter and even came back to knock out Maynard in the fourth round of their second fight. How much heart do you have to have to come back twice from getting destroyed in the first round of two fights in a row? A lot that’s how much. Jones might be the most naturally gifted fighter on the list but Edgar beats him hands down in heart and the desire to win. You can’t learn that in gym. That is why Frankie Edgar is my number one fighter for 2011.

Honourable Mentions

Roger Gracie – After beating Trevor Prangley so convincingly he would have been a shoo-in for my top ten if he hadn’t been knocked out by King Mo in September. He was pushed into a fight with Lawal far too quickly in my opinion after only having 4 professional MMA bouts. It was a case of Strikeforce needing some big name fights after fighters started jumping ship to UFC. Couple this with him being a world grappling champion and Lawal being a former light-heavyweight champion and it was a no-brainer for Strikeforce but a very bad move for Gracie.
Gilbert Melendez – The way he came back from injury and dominated Tatsuya Kawajiri was quite a stunning victory. Unfortunately he only fought once at the time of writing. He didn’t quite impressive me enough this year to be included on my list. But there is always next year.

Needs To Try Harder In 2012
Charles Oliveira – It was a pretty bad 12 months for this young fighter. Billed by everyone as a future UFC lightweight champion by most who have seen him fight. 2011 saw him drop one fight and have one fight ruled a no contest by kneeing Nik Lentz in the head while Lentz had all four limbs on the ground. His performance was so dominating up until that point he looked like he would have easily been a top 5 on this list.

Who are your 10 favourite fighters of 2011? Do you disagree with any of mine? Is Frankie Edgar not deserving enough of the no 1 spot? Let me know what you think in the replies.

Thanks for reading, cheers!

Nick Diaz And His Superhuman Cardio

by Brendan · 5 comments

If you’ve watched any of Nick Diaz’s fights in the last few years it almost seems like he never gets tired. In fact he seems to get more energy as the fight wears on. If you saw how he outworked BJ Penn at UFC 137 you will understand what I mean.

The first round was fairly even with both competitors getting their fair share of the exchanges. But I would have given the first round to Penn. The problem with fighting Diaz is his opponents can only keep up with his relentless pace for so long before they start to gas and slow down. Once this happened to Penn in the second round it was basically a free for all for Diaz. Diaz was out striking Penn from the second round until the end of the fight. I have never seen BJ Penn look like that after a fight. He didn’t even look like that after fighting Jon Fitch or St. Pierre and they are both bigger and stronger than Diaz. I have a lot of respect for Penn coming out for the third round because he looked like his corner should have thrown in the towel and stopped the fight.

Nick Diaz Cardio

How does he do this you may be asking. Well I’ve done some research and this is what I’ve found. Nick competes in Iron Man races and Triathlons. Whatever your feelings are about the guy you have to tip your hat to him to be willing to take his conditioning to the next level. From what he puts himself though before a fight it is clear he is extremely passionate about his health and fitness. Running these sort of races isn’t something for the feint of heart, it takes months of preparation and you need to be able to ignore that voice in your head that tells you to quit when you feel exhausted.

Nick Diaz Mid Triathlon

Diaz recently participated in the 30th annual Donner Lake Triathlon in Truckee, California, finishing an impressive 36th out of 292 entrants. The race comprises of a 1.5 kilometre swim. A 40 k bike ride and finally a 6.5 mile run. Diaz completed the course in 2 hours, 46 minutes and 20.4 seconds.

Diaz has long been a triathlon competitor and credits that for his reputation as one of the fittest athletes in Mixed Martial Arts. In fact in a recent interview he stated.

“Fighting is 90 percent mental, and knowing that 15 minutes or 25 minutes are no problem can help you sustain that mental advantage over your opponent,” he said. “What’s 25 minutes when I’ve been pushing 80 percent of my maximum aerobic threshold for three hours?”

The below video actually shows Nick right before competing in a triathlon and he explains why he has such good cardio & endurance. Most of it he puts down to swimming as a child.

A lot of MMA coaches state that distance running is useless for Mixed Martial Arts and we should instead concentrate on sprinting. I think Nick Diaz makes a good case for that statement being a load of crap. No doubt sprints help your body develop the ability to have quick, controlled bursts of energy, but distance running definitely has its place. I have used distance running to help my weight loss. But I have also noticed a big improvement in my cardio for Brazilina Jiu-Jitsu and Grappling. When my team mates are all breathing heavily and out of breath I still feel fine. Doing GSP’s RushFit series has also improved my cardio dramatically.

Here is an example workout that I have created which will go a long way to increasing your cardio and endurance.

Simple Cardio Workout

Start off with a 5k run. This will fill your muscles with lactic acid and start to tire you out
5 rounds of 1 minute sprints (add a hill incline for some extra difficulty if you feel the need)
30 Burpees

The goal is to try and complete this workout as quickly as you can. Over a period of time you should see that your cardio is increasing because this workout will start getting easier and you will not feel as tired after completing it and subsequently you start to finish it in a shorter time.

If you find that you can’t get through the entire workout when you first start doing it, do not worry. Just complete as much of it as you can. Eventually you will be able to do it all from start to finish.

If you are lucky enough to own a gym membership with access to a swimming pool you can substitute the sprints for 10 minutes of swimming laps of the pool as quickly as you can. I don’t have a gym membership any more so I make do with running. On a side note both running and swimming are great for weight loss. Swimming is probably the most effective of the two. I have a friend who managed to loose 20 pounds or 1.6 stone just by going swimming 3 times a week without making any serious dietary changes. It really helps burn the fat and speed up a persons metabolic rate.

The reason I’ve added Burpees into the mix is because in Mixed Martial Arts the most tiring aspect from my own experience is the switching levels between standing and being on the ground and getting back up to my feet again. Doing this multiple times in a five minute round really tires guys out. That is what really takes it out of me so I added those in for good measure. Don’t hate me, I hate them as well!

This workout will not give you Nick Diaz levels of cardio but it will go a long way to improving it. To get the same sort of cardio as Nick you are going to have to start distance running and maybe entering some races like he does. When you have the endurance to run a 2 hour race at 60-80% of your fastest pace you will find that the three five minute rounds of an MMA fight a complete breeze in comparison.

If you want to increase your endurance and cardio Nick makes a good case for distance running and swimming being the ways to go. Don’t be scared homie!

As always if you have any questions please feel free to leave me a comment. Thanks for reading cheers!

Nick Diaz – Will He Ever Learn?

by Brendan · 2 comments

Nick Diaz

Former UFC title contender Nick Diaz has come under much scrutiny this week. Controversy seems to follow him wherever he goes if it’s not failing a drugs test and getting one of his most high profile victories overturned it’s getting reprimanded for brawling on national television. And last week after being scheduled for a long awaiting shot at UFC Welterweight champion George St Pierre, he rises to the occasion by missing two promotional press conferences, lying to UFC president Dana White, hiding from his coach / mentor Caesar Gracie and his team mates (including Jake Shields and Gilbert Melendez).

He then took to YouTube to explain himself in a maddening self shot video diary while driving! It is just about coherent enough for fans to detect a delusional smugness.

Nick Diaz “I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the beauty pageant”

“Funny, one second I’m about to come into some money, do a little boxing, you know, fucking, probably lose some teeth. But um, I’m ready to get paid, you know. So, I’ll fight whoever, whatever, anything you know. I’d definitely rather fight GSP of course. You know, I was ready to do some boxing, and they didn’t like that. So they got me out of that, and they got me in the fight with GSP for the same money, or more money, or whatever. But now it looks like they get to save money, and I don’t get paid, and I’m locked in a new contract. All these deal makers making deals. All I know is I’m ready to fight. I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the beauty pageant. But, you know, I’ve never not showed up to a fight. I’ve never backed out of a fight in my life, that’s not what I do. So I just wanted to throw that out there.”

I’m not a doctor and neither is trainer Caesar Gracie but he knows Diaz better than anyone so when he says he think he has social anxiety disorder I’m inclined to agree (especially after this latest bout of sabotaging his own career). The difference between missing this press conference and the Strikeforce pressers of the past is this fight was the biggest and likely most profitable fight of his career. He’s complained for the last few years about not getting paid the same amount for fighting as GSP does. His chance had finally arrived to start earning that champion type of money he has wanted for years and he throws it all away.

“I talked to Dana White about this before, and I think a big problem with all of this is Nick has social anxiety,” Caesar Gracie said. “He doesn’t like to go and be away from home. He has no trouble fighting in the cage, though.

“He doesn’t feel comfortable being around people. He has a very deep ingrained social anxiety, and it’s something he probably needs help for, I think. I think that’s why he self-medicates with the marijuana. That’s my amateur opinion.”

White has been quoted in the past saying Diaz “Has to play the game” if he wants to get back into UFC. I don’t think this is what Dana had in mind. After he [Diaz] was pulled and replaced with Carlos Condit for the fight White expressed that he wasn’t surprised by Diaz’s behaviour, but he was extremely angry with him, so angry that he was close to cutting him from the promotion entirely. Removing him from the fight was understandable. Diaz has been quoted as saying he finds the media portion of the fight business a waste of time, as a lot of fighters do. But it is still part of their job, if I don’t bother turning up for my office job I get fired. That’s why I get up at 7am every morning because I have to.

I think Condit is arguably a more well rounded fighter than Diaz so I think he will give St Pierre a better fight at UFC 137.

It begs the question if Diaz beats BJ Penn (his new opponent when the main event and co-main event were switched around) will he get another title shot? Surely that would put the UFC in the same predicament as they were in last week. So it begs the question; what was the point of pulling him in the first place? Above all I think Ceasar Gracie needs to get Nick Diaz some professional help for his social anxiety or else he will end up having a mental illness blight his career like it has Karo Parisyan’s.

Even though this piece seems like I’m being overly harsh towards Diaz I’m actually a really big fan and hate to see him throwing his career away by making stupid childish decisions. He’s an extremely entertaining fighter and always comes ready to fight.

What are your thoughts of the Nick Diaz fiasco. Leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts. Thanks for reading cheers!