Paul's Preview: Masvidal vs Diaz (Patreon)

Back in 2003-2004, MMA was still in its wild west days. The UFC was the fledgling upstart promotion just trying to claw its way into the black while PRIDE and K-1 reigned supreme over in Japan. Tons of smaller organizations existed to serve the local crowds, with athletic commissions and regulations years away from taking place. During this time frame, a young Jorge Masvidal parlayed his internet notoriety into an MMA career, making his debut in his home state of Florida. A year after that, Nate Diaz decided to follow in his brother’s footsteps and get paid for fighting, also debuting in his home state of California. Both fighters emerged victorious, finishing their opponents (Masvidal with the KO, Diaz with the submission). A lot has changed from 2003-2004 to today, with Japanese MMA losing popularity and the UFC entering mainstream global recognition. Many high-level fighters have come and gone, but both Masvidal and Diaz are still scrapping, still somehow relevant after all these years (in fact, their popularity has never been higher). Despite having professional careers spanning close to two decades (17 for Masvidal, 16 for Diaz), both fighters are still competing at the top of the sport and winning more than they lose. To give you some context, Georges St. Pierre, Matt Hughes, Rich Franklin, Rashad Evans, Forrest Griffin, Matt Serra, and Michael Bisping have all have made their debuts, won titles, and retired before they hit 16 years in the sport. On average, MMA athletes see a decline in their performance after 9 years of competition, with the last stretches being particularly difficult. Not too long ago, we saw Luke Rockhold and Chris Weidman both take L’s in brutal fashion in their most recent fights with losing streaks that have been devastating for both men. In their last 5 fights, they have a combined record of 3 wins and 7 losses (all striking-related finishes). The point is, Masvidal and Diaz have been able to fight with no real dip in performance throughout their long careers and we should marvel at their longevity. We know both fighters love to throw down and go for the finish, but between the two of them... who comes out on top? Luckily for the fans, we get to find out on November 2nd instead of playing out hypotheticals in our heads. Let’s take a closer look at how these two match up. 

Masvidal is riding an all-time high in popularity, due in no small part to his last two KO finishes and charming wit when it comes to catchphrases. After a very active 2017, Masvidal sat out for the entirety of 2018 due to contract disputes and what he considered to be a lack of meaningful matchups. He eventually got the meaningful matchups that he wanted, and man did he make the most of them. Masvidal’s 2019 has been spectacular, and if he can pull off a win against Diaz he’ll be a perfect 3-0 in his last three fights heading into 2020. Despite going just 2-2 in his last four fights, it’s worth noting that his losses were to Demian Maia and Stephen Thompson, both fighters who were in the top 5 during the time of the matchups. Masvidal’s last fight against Askren didn’t tell us much in terms of what skillset he improved, but it did show us that he’s still a ruthless finisher that can follow the game plan that his coaches have laid out. To really see improvements he’s made, let’s look further into his fight with Darren Till. The coaching staff over at ATT are among the best in business and should be recognized for their ability to scout out opponents and build strategies for beating them. Against both Till and Askren, Mike Brown was able to study their offensive and defensive habits and exploit their weaknesses. Till was known for throwing single power shots with a lot of feints, but overall he didn’t set up a lot of his strikes, instead relying on his size and power to hurt his opponents. This was evident in Till’s matchups against Cerrone and Thompson. Till was a lot more hesitant against Woodley due to the latter’s KO power and wrestling abilities, and it cost him the title. ATT figured that Till would be looking to rebound with a striking friendly opponent, and Masvidal was game.     

It’s clear that Masvidal kept up his training during 2018 and made sure that his experience would be the determining factor. Having built a reputation as a slow starter and methodical counter striker, Masvidal shed that label in his most recent fights, starting aggressively and putting his opponents on their back foot (or in Askren’s case, just on his back). Prior to this, there have been many fights that Masvidal felt that he’s won simply by relying on his defensive moves to keep him out of trouble while throwing in some slick counter punches, only to lose a close split decision. Starting with the Donald Cerrone fight, Masvidal has made sure to start out more aggressively and make sure that he gets his opponents attention, even if it doesn’t work to his favor (like in the Thompson and Maia fights). Against Till, Masvidal made sure his 5’11” frame and 74” reach wouldn’t be a factor by immediately starting the fight with low kicks, although they landed right on Till’s twig and berries. It was evident that the speed of Till was giving Masvidal issues, a fighter who is generally hard to land on, period. Over time it became evident that Till was focused on single power strikes while moving backwards, a defensive flaw that Masvidal caught on. Knowing that fighting on the feet for the entirety of the fight is more dangerous than it’s worth, Masvidal mixed in takedowns to get Till to lower his hands just long enough to start adding in punches up top. A quick shifting of his stance while stepping forward caught Till clean and knocks him out. Against Askren, Masvidal took advantage of Askren’s tendency to shoot in low as a response to any striking exchange and threw a flying knee, which paid off in spades. However, these aren’t the only things that Masvidal does well.   

Parrying kicks is also one of Masvidal’s specialty, and this was on full display in the Cowboy fight. Whenever Cerrone would throw a round kick, Masvidal would grab a hold of it, throw it across his body, and return fire with hooks and straights. Even someone of Thompson’s caliber wasn’t immune from this, which caused Thompson to abandon round kicks and focus on side and low line kicks almost exclusively. One of the reasons that he can get opponents to commit to throwing strikes that he can parry/catch is his ability to manipulate the rhythm of the fight. Instead of simply trying to work off feinting and footwork alone, Masvidal does a great job of breaking his own offensive patterns and creating an off-beat for his opponents. Some fighters like Błachowicz and Dominick Cruz do this with herky-jerky movements, but Masvidal makes it look smooth because of his timing. Against guys like Cerrone, Ross Pearson, and Jake Ellenberger, Masvidal was giving them all different looks in the offense department: throwing fast jabs and straights in one quick motion, then feinting, then jabbing slowly, and then quickly jabbing again and throwing a hook afterwards. It doesn’t matter if the jabs are powerful or not, they serve their ultimate purpose of dulling the opponents’ senses (something that Diaz does equally well). JDS puts some serious power behind his jabs, but he doesn’t always land them with much frequency. Masvidal is constantly throwing them to set you up for power shots that you don’t see coming. Adding in a few body kicks and low kicks gives him even more ways to hurt his opponents, and it’s something he does quite well. Outside of the physical tools, Masvidal’s fight IQ is very high. One of the X factors that Masvidal has working in his favor is his uncanny ability to follow the game plan laid out by his coaches.

As mentioned above in his wins against Till and Askren, Masvidal can execute a game plan perfectly, but it’s only because he has a wealth of experience and tools to pull it off. You can get a map leading you to the top of Mt. Everest, but only a skilled climber can make it to the summit. Masvidal has 17 years of fighting under his belt, and when you factor in all the fights he’s had in unregulated settings, its probably closer to 20. That means any scenario you can think of, he’s probably been in before. Hell, he’s one of the handful of fighters to have ever been caught in an inverted triangle choke…but he also has the fastest KO in UFC history. Learning from past mistakes and correcting them has been one of the reasons that Masvidal has been so successful and still able to have a career. Diaz hasn’t changed as much throughout the years, and it’ll be interesting to see what kind of plan Masvidal and his team have in store for him. Speaking of Diaz, what are some things that make him special?   

Nate Diaz is also someone just like Masvidal, a fighter that other combatants will tune in to watch. His defiant attitude, willingness to disregard authority figures, and penchant for exciting fights makes him a fan favorite. In addition to this, Diaz is not shy about telling the world how he feels, whether they’re legitimate gripes or sour grapes. After spending nearly 3 years away from the Octagon, a matchup with Pettis provided to be exciting enough for Diaz to come out of his self-imposed exodus and make show the world that he hasn’t missed a beat. Prior to that, Diaz’s last two fights were against Conor McGregor, going 1-1 against him. In the past four years, Diaz has fought 3 times, with two of them against the same opponent. Those two matches with McGregor were enough to set up Diaz financially since he has been able to pick his shots since, walking away from a matchup with Dustin Poirier and even willing to walk away from the Masvidal fight when his whole USADA debacle surfaced (a serious topic worth discussing an entire episode on). At 6’ with a 76” reach, Diaz is on the taller end of the lightweight division, but average as a welterweight. What has given him most of his victories is his stifling boxing, with his submission game a close second. Much like his older brother Nick, Nate Diaz likes to move forward while mixing in his high-volume boxing with taunts. Taunting isn’t a skill taught in most MMA schools, but it works for Diaz. In his matchup against Michael Johnson, you can visibly see Johnson getting frustrated and lunging for punches that he knows are too far, but he can’t help himself when Diaz points and laughs at his shortcomings. Against McGregor and Pettis, Diaz kept shrugging his shoulders and egging them to keep coming, chipping away at their confidence and gas tank with body shots. Diaz isn’t scared of taking some damage to dish them out, and his constant use of jabs and hooks to the midsection overwhelm opponents if they choose to stand for most of the fight. Against strikers like McGregor, Cerrone, Pettis, and Johnson, Diaz constantly jabbed to block the vision and targeted the noses, hoping to make it harder to breathe. Paired with punches to the body to sap away at your gas tank, it’s only a matter of time before you start sucking wind and looking for a way out. When it comes to a fight between Masvidal and Diaz, this fight becomes interesting for different reasons.

Both Masvidal and Diaz are strikers with great grappling ability, and their preferred strategies are somewhat similar. Breaking down Diaz’s last fight with Pettis actually shows some evolution in his strategy. Even though Diaz fights southpaw, he threw Pettis off by constantly stance switching in the first round, making it hard for Pettis to plant his feet and start swinging leg kicks. This made it much more difficult for Pettis to find his range and start chopping down Diaz, and if Pettis’s team expected just one stance throughout the fight, they were in for a rude awakening. Even while moving forward, Diaz made sure to constantly raise his lead leg to make sure that any low kicks would be checked, and when he landed on his feet, Diaz planted it hard just in case Pettis would try and punt it out. The way Diaz was moving around and stalking Pettis towards the fence was reminiscent of how Tony Ferguson and Max Holloway were able to pressure and corner him. Even though Diaz isn’t as slick as either of them, Diaz moves in with hooks to keep you from escaping to his open side, and once he’s close enough to touch you, you can expect a clinch to follow. Once Diaz clinched Pettis, he landed short hooks to the head and constantly threw knees to the legs of Pettis. Diaz was almost never exclusively looking for the knockout, he knew that if he dragged Pettis in deep waters, it would be enough to fold the former lightweight champion. A great example of this was in round one where Pettis timed a knee beautifully and it hit Diaz clean in the midsection, but Diaz used that opportunity to grab a single leg and take Pettis down.

I mentioned Ferguson and Holloway before, and it bears repeating. Diaz doesn’t have the same style as either of them, but there are still some habits of them that he incorporates into his own. The sheer volume and commitment to body strikes of Holloway are also seen in Diaz, and Ferguson’s awkward stalking and forward pressure are also present in Diaz as well. There are a couple of things that Diaz did in this fight that he seldom did before. Other than stance switching, Diaz also started shooting in earlier and going for attacks on the ground. In the second McGregor fight, it wasn’t until the later rounds that he actively looked for takedowns, but this time around he went on the offensive and didn’t wait for Pettis to be hurt first before trying to take the fight to the ground. Another neat addition was throwing knees to his opponents heads as they duck under the clinch trying to escape. Like a matador, Diaz was waiting for Pettis to shift his head to the outside position to avoid hooks or another takedown attempt, only to eat a knee to the head. Diaz did a great job of digging his head under the jaw of Pettis, one of Jon Jones’s favorite moves, and it kept Pettis from seeing what strike Diaz was planning. He was able to force feed him short hooks, uppercuts, and knees. In the second round, this sequence of attack actually dropped Pettis in rounds 2 AND 3, and it didn’t seem like something Pettis was prepared for. Diaz also channeled his inner Justin Gaethje and moved forward with both his forearms up, shielding him face and inviting Pettis to throw hooks and straights so he can get an opportunity to return fire with 1-2’s and over hands. 

Given that Diaz has been around pre-Ultimate Fighter, it’s safe to say that he’s seen almost everything that MMA has to offer. Despite having a skillset geared towards boxing with great jiu jitsu, he has done a great job of adding in kicks and offensive wrestling to really round out his game and make him a much more varied threat. Diaz went from having his lead leg punted repeatedly by the likes of Cerrone and Ben Henderson to initiating his own offensive kicks against the likes of Pettis and Johnson. He used to struggle against wrestlers who took him down and slipped all his submission attempts but instead of refusing to evolve, he stepped up his takedown game and improved his clinch work against the fence and greatly improved his double and single leg takedowns. Much like Masvidal, Diaz has managed to stay relevant by evolving his game and adding tweaks that will help him set up his A-game. His in-fight adjustments are also visible to even casual fans. Both the McGregor and Pettis fights showed a Diaz that got hurt, changed up his strategy, and went on to do much better (winning two and losing one in a close contest). Is this enough to beat the crafty Masvidal?

Given that both fighters are similar in style, their paths to victories have a lot of the same traits. With both being similar in height and reach, it’s going to come down to a battle of their stances. Diaz famously stands southpaw but can stance switch as needed. Masvidal fights orthodox, but has stood southpaw in the past (most famously against Pat Healy and Darren Till when he knocked him out). Even though both throw high volumes of jabs, their preferred methods are different. Masvidal likes to throw off his opponents with feints and rhythm manipulation, and Diaz has a lot of success varying his speed and power. They’re both incredibly effective and manage to do a lot of damage with minimal investments. Masvidal’s jabs against Cerrone, Pearson, and KJ Noons showed that even seasoned strikers can fall victim to feints, and all three suffered knockdowns at some point in their fights. Diaz has managed to stun fighters with jabs alone, especially when they’re expecting a lazy jab that they can walk through only to be caught with more power than they expected. The open stance nature of the fight could theoretically cancel out the effectiveness of Masvidal’s jabs, as he had his lead hand stuffed repeatedly by Till and visibly struggled at times by having his left hand compromised (Till is also a southpaw). This is good news for Diaz, as one of his best tools is to reach out and grab the opponents lead hand with his own. If this scenario were to play out, we can expect to see both fighters engage in some kicks.

Masvidal is going to want to be on offense, constantly hunting down Diaz and keeping him at the end of his kicks. He has one of the best kicks to punches combinations in the UFC and combining that with body hooks and low kicks makes him especially dangerous at all ranges. The shorter and more compact McGregor was able to hurt Diaz in his rematch by utilizing a more varied kicking game, and by timing his round kicks with Diaz’s jab, McGregor was able to follow up with his left straight. Masvidal has shown that he can stance switch for long periods during fights, so this might be a neat strategy to utilize from time to time. This game plan also caused Diaz problems since he couldn’t stay heavy on his lead foot and it took the sting off his jabs. It’s no secret that the narrow stance of Diaz makes him vulnerable to low kicks, and almost everyone Diaz opponent has been able to land some on him (despite making drastic improvements in this department). Masvidal is going to have get started on kicking low early if he wants to stifle the mobility of Diaz. Mixing in some high kicks can also keep him upright, and he had a lot of success with this against Ross Pearson. Diaz is susceptible to high kicks, and he’s eaten quite a few in his days. That being said, Diaz isn’t without his own kicking game, and it serves its purpose of closing the distance and getting in closer to throw hooks and initiate the clinch. Against Pettis, he had no problems stance switching and checking leg kicks, something that used to trouble him in the past. Although he’s not a pushover, Masvidal still does have a slight edge when it comes to the kicking game.

Even though Masvidal has way less submission wins than Diaz, the grappling is essentially a wash. What makes this especially interesting is Masvidal’s ability to counter effectively and it’ll be extremely fun to see this against Diaz’s submission prowess and aggressive forward movement. Masvidal is notoriously hard to take down and is even harder to keep down. Masvidal is going to have to dig deep through his bag of tricks in order to keep Diaz from tying him up and find ways to scramble back quickly without exposing his limbs. Masvidal’s constant use of jabs and rhythm manipulation can cause Diaz to overreact and shoot in early without a real set up, and it could create opportunities for hooks and uppercuts (something that Diaz is no stranger to). It might seem counterintuitive against a dangerous grappler like Diaz but timing the kicks immediately after a sloppy takedown could serve as a deterrent as well as another way for Masvidal to rack up points pretty easily. Calf kicks are notoriously hard to defend against, even the usually quick Frankie Edgar struggled with this against Ben Henderson. Setting up low line kicks can also keep Diaz at a distance and could cause him to shoot in early. Keep in mind that Masvidal’s own takedown defense isn’t bad at all, hovering around the 80% mark. He was able to handle most of the takedowns against Demian Maia, Rustam Khabilov, and Ben Henderson. Masvidal was able to get his back to the fence, defend the takedown, and reverse positions quite handily. Masvidal can use this position to try and damage Diaz to the body, sneak in a few strikes off the clinch, and go back to jabbing and throwing hooks. Masvidal has fought enough grapplers and has made tons of mistakes against them. Whether it’s lingering too long with his lead leg in front or not scrambling off quick enough when they pass his guard, Masvidal’s lack of urgency has cost him in the past, and it’s not something he can afford against a workhorse like Diaz.

For Diaz to win, he’s going to have to use a similar strategy that he utilized in the McGregor fights and against Cerrone. Given that Masvidal stands orthodox to Diaz’s southpaw, this gives him a great opportunity to bury the lead jab of Masvidal and force the fight to an open stance. Masvidal opts for dipping out in order create space and start kicking to the body and legs, but this also gives Diaz an opportunity to keep jabbing without the fear of an immediate counterattack. Add in constant feinting and body shots (including the sheer volume of punches) and this can tire out Masvidal over time and make him more prone to slowing down. Just when Masvidal thinks he’s out of range, Diaz can smack him with a straight after a lazy jab, one of his go-to’s. Look no further than both McGregor and Michael Johnson fights to see this in action. Also, if Diaz feels that Masvidal isn’t aggressive enough and too focused on countering, expect to see him put his forearms up to guard his face and move forward, Justin Gaethje style, in order to draw out the straights and hooks. This gives Diaz the opportunity to get in close and initiate the clinch, a position he does absolutely fantastic in. By slapping on a collar tie or letting his opponents get one, Diaz can start hammering the body. If the opponent reaches the arm out, Diaz can swat it away and throw a straight down the middle. If that path is blocked, Diaz will go around it by throwing hooks.

The fight is going to come down to what range this fight is fought at. At long range, this favors Masvidal since he can utilize his slightly better kicking game and make things more difficult for Diaz. It doesn’t mean that Diaz is easy pickings. Even against Cerrone, Diaz started to pick up his lead leg as the fight wore on and came down hard on it to get in closer and hurt Cerrone with punches. Diaz is also willing to lose the first few exchanges if it means that he can get in close to hurt you and combined with his gas tank, he can be a nightmare for someone who has cruised as the fight goes on (as Masvidal has done in the past). At close range, Diaz has the volume and conditioning to drag this out and overwhelm you, but this is the exact kind of game plan that Masvidal utilizes effectively as well. No matter what, this matchup has all the potential to be fight of the YEAR, and even though the BMF title is silly, it’ll be amazing to see who really is the baddest motherfucker around.