When the main event of UFC 143 began on Saturday night, I knew I was in for an interesting next half hour or so. I was at a local establishment where half of the patrons were Nick Diaz fans and the other half were Carlos Condit fans. Once the fight was complete and the decision had been read, I was shocked at the amount of people, both around me and on twitter, that were outraged with the way Condit fought. Even the Condit fans nearby were criticising his championship performance.
So many people were criticising Condit for “running away” from Diaz and “not engaging”. First off, that is a ridiculous statement. When you say Condit “didn’t engage”, what you’re really saying is that Condit did not play into Diaz’s game and walk forward throwing wild strikes. Condit stuck to a game plan that was perfect to counter Diaz’s style.
In all likelihood, Condit’s strategy can be attributed to his head coach Greg Jackson. Jackson is no stranger to preparing a fighter for a fight with a Diaz. Jackson has had to prepare two of his fighters, Clay Guida and Donald Cerrone, for fights with Nate Diaz who has a very similar style to his brother Nick.
Obviously Jackson has picked up a few things from preparing his fighters for Nate Diaz. The game plan was brilliant. Diaz is a fighter who presses forward and wants to back his opponent against the cage and unleash punches in bunches. How do you counter that? You circle away from the cage and that is exactly what Condit did.
It was clear that Diaz was unable to cut off the cage and stop Condit from circling away and it appeared to frustrate Diaz enough that he began trash talking and trying to anger Condit enough to get him to waver away from his game plan. It didn’t work too well as Condit continued to strike and circle away from Diaz.
Is circling away from your opponent running away? I don’t think so. The fact that fans were outraged that Condit didn’t want to get into a game of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots isn’t a reasonable gripe.
Maybe fans should be more upset with Nick Diaz for not cutting the cage off than Carlos Condit for exploiting a well planned strategy.
We were promised a fight. We got a gameplan. Carlos was all about the knockout and submission up till he fought Nick. And he was talking like he was not afraid to trade with Diaz and intended to be “the natural born killer”. What we saw was not a fight – but rather a lesson on how to avoid a fight. Carlos was not hurting Nick with sissy kicks to the legs — they were not thrown with intent – but rather for points. As real as it gets? not anymore. Now people are complaining Carlos won’t fight to defend the belt until GSP. Why should he fight to defend the belt — he did not fight to win it.