Cover photo courtesy of Anthony Pettis and MMAJunkie.
Recently on “The Helwani Show” Anthony Pettis was asked by Ariel how the beef between he and Nate Diaz began. Pettis couldn’t remember but threw out reasons why he thinks Nate started beef between them. The key reason is Pettis figures Nate was jealous of him years ago when he was champion and wanted a shot at him. Nothing against Pettis, but anybody who’s paid attention to the Diaz brothers the last 15 years know they have a problem with anybody in their weight class and many people outside of it. The Diaz brothers don’t view MMA as a sport, to them it’s a fight and any opponent (or potential opponent) is an enemy. Even if you’re friends with the opponent, you’re an enemy and they will treat you as such if you come anywhere near them. The Diaz brothers mainly eat like vegans, but their lives have always had plenty of beef.
A post shared by Nate Diaz (@natediaz209) on Aug 3, 2019 at 2:21am PDT
Both Anthony and Nate tend to have very exciting fights, especially against anybody who wants to “stand and bang”. Usually those fights remain a war on the feet until somebody gets cracked, dropped and knocked out or submitted. Of Pettis’s 30 career fights 9 have gone to decision, yet he has 18 finishes in 22 of his victories. Diaz also has 30 career fights, 12 going to decision. Of his 19 victories he has 16 finishes, only 3 decisions. 9 of Nates losses have been via decision, the only 2 times he’s been finished was Hermes Franca via arm bar in 2006 and a TKO loss to Josh Thompson in 2013. Of Pettis’s 8 losses he’s been finished 3 times, twice via TKO and once by submission. Unfortunately for Pettis all those finishes are his last three losses, but his last victory was a KO victory over a man who’d never been knocked out in nearly 60 professional kickboxing fights and an MMA career with 17 fights.
A post shared by Anthony Pettis (@showtimepettis) on Mar 24, 2019 at 4:29am PDT
Stylistically this is a very interesting fight. Nate is known for three main things; BJJ, boxing and insane cardio. Pettis has always been known most for his flashy style but he’s much more than fancy kicks and superman punches, he also has a nasty submission game. When evaluating these two against each other, let’s start on the feet. Nate will have a 3-4” reach advantage and probably has better pure boxing. Pettis also has good boxing and is probably more on the creative side while Nate a more “meat and potatoes”. The kicking game is where Anthony has the biggest edge, I’ll be curious to see how much of it he uses against Nate.
A post shared by Nate Diaz (@natediaz209) on Oct 11, 2015 at 3:30pm PDT
On the ground Nate is legit black belt under Cesar Gracie and has 5 submission of the night victories in the UFC. Pettis recently submitted Michael Chiesa, most known for his grappling skills. That fight earned Pettis “Fight of the Night” honors and reminded people how dangerous his submission skills are. Because neither Nate or Anthony have in depth wrestling backgrounds, I doubt anybody will be attempting takedowns against each other. More likely somebody gets hurt in the stand up fight and has to grapple to recover. Both Nate and Pettis are killers when they get people hurt, they aren’t the type of strikers who are hesitant to finish a fight by submission after they badly hurt their opponent via strikes. The above mentioned fight vs Chiesa was a great notch for Pettis and truly showed the growth in his ground game.
A post shared by Anthony Pettis (@showtimepettis) on Aug 6, 2018 at 4:20pm PDT
There’s a reason every online poll asking what fight on UFC 241 is the most anticipated is Nate Diaz vs Anthony Pettis. They’re both old school fighters with a history of making sure fans are entertained by their fight style. Nate’s camp came to Pettis’s camp to entice this fight, not UFC matchmakers. This fight was made because the UFC can’t say no to a fight like this, they probably feel like it was like a Christmas present to see those two parties finally want to collide. The chances fans aren’t entertained by this fight is probably about .1%. If you’re a genuine MMA fan, you need to watch UFC 241.
A post shared by Anthony Pettis (@showtimepettis) on May 11, 2019 at 8:42pm PDT
Jason Marlowe, UnknownMMA
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