“I fought like garbage and I’m sorry to my fans for my performance. I was hesitant about throwing hard punches because I kept thinking he was going to go for a takedown. It looked like I was knocked down in the second but actually he stepped on my foot and when I tried to back out I slipped. I really don’t think I’m going to stay at 155lbs. I don’t make enough money to have to drop this much weight so I’d like to fight at 170 and only go to 55’s every once in awhile. You know if you look at his face compared to mine right now you’d think there was no way he beat me in a fight but I’ve never been too popular with the judges.”
—Nate Diaz, via GracieFighter.com, apologizing for his performance and revealing his desire to move to welterweight
Nate kinda has a point about Gray Maynard’s face, but really it was just a close fight that could have went either way. In fact, FightMetric scored it a 29-29 draw. Regardless, it’s no reason to do something drastic like move up in weight. As Cage Potato points out, there are some monsters in the welterweight division — Anthony Johnson and Thiago Alves come to mind — that have the potential to break Nate in half. At the very least they would negate every size and reach advantage Nate enjoys at 155. There’s no question Nate is talented and tough as they come, but he’s not his brother Nick, at least not yet.
In semi-related news, Dana White has confirmed Frankie Edgar will get the next title shot at BJ Penn instead of Gray Maynard. The interview should be up later tonight.
Below: Gray Maynard talks about letting Diaz get in his head and out of his gameplan.
Image via Sherdog
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wow, I’ve never heard of fighter loosing fights and wanting to move up in weigth. I usuallay hear of fighters saying that they will do better if they move down weight. I think he got punched in the head too hard.
Maybe Nate should go to the WEC
yeah, he should go to the wec but he will be too tall and skinnier compared to the other folks over there. i dont know how that would work out, it would look funny.
dumbass he wants to move up in weight cause the weight cut for 155 is hard on him fucking looser nate is still the man