There was something quite insane about the calls coming from Nate Diaz’ corner during his UFC 202 bout with Conor McGregor.
Whenever their fighter would take a crunching blow, shake it off and plough forward, Richard Perez, Jake Shields and Gilbert Melendez would let out wild yells.
“YEAH!”, “You can take it”, “He can’t knock you out. He can’t knock you out!”
It was almost as if the men revelled in the amount of punishment Diaz could take and still keep swinging.
And swing he definitely did.
According to FightMetric, Diaz attempted 435 strikes during his 25 minute war with The Notorious. That is just over 17 strikes per minute and a strike thrown every 3.4 seconds. Diaz landed 252 strikes [166 were deemed to be significant strikes].
Diaz overtook Michael Bisping [1,749] and Frankie Edgar [1,871] for most strikes landed by a UFC fighter. He is now the clear leader, on 1,926.
McGregor landed 197 of his 322 strikes attempted during the Diaz rematch. He is now on 909 landed strikes in his nine-fight UFC career.
John Kavanagh, McGregor’s coach, believes Diaz could be the toughest opponent his man has ever faced. He told The MMA Hour:
“Who else can walk through shots like Nate can? There was a very different shot from this fight to the previous fight. In the previous fight, Conor was going forward a lot and Nate was retreating, and Conor’s best shot – that left hand – was hitting Nate on the move. Nate was moving with it.
“But this one was the perfect shot. We drew Nate in with the leg kicks and as he moved forward, Conor hit him. So you’ve got two forces there – Nate coming forward and Conor’s shot coming forward. You can’t get a heavier shot than that.
“And what does Nate do? Puts his hands out [wide] and walks forward. I’m not going to lie, I was slightly terrified.”
In the end, though, it was McGregor’s ability to land the shots that made big impressions on the judges, floored Diaz and won him rounds.
Whether Diaz gets McGregor next, or not, he should become the first fighter past the 2,000 mark. Older brother Nick Diaz, on 1,616, is not far away from that landmark himself.
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