Frank Shamrock vs. Nick Diaz
The main event is an extremely compelling matchup between former UFC champion and King of Pancrase Frank Shamrock and UFC, PRIDE, and EliteXC veteran Nick Diaz. Considering the size disparity, this fight is being held at a catch weight of 179 pounds.
Frank Shamrock is a legend in Mixed Martial Arts. A standout in the early days of Pancrase, Frank achieved superstardom in UFC in the late 1990s, tearing through the middleweight ranks and ending his time with UFC by making future Hall of Famer Tito Ortiz submit to strikes. Since 2000, though, Shamrock’s career has taken an odd turn. For one thing, his in-ring activity has been extremely sporadic. He had a mere three fights between 2000 and 2006, two in 2007, and one last year in which his arm was snapped like a twig by a Cung Le kick. For another, his style seems to have undergone a complete overhaul. Once regarded as one of the sport’s most dangerous grapplers, a combination of injuries and personal preference has caused Shamrock to essentially abandon the ground game completely. Luckily for him, his striking is crisp, accurate, and powerful, so it’s not a total loss.
Diaz, for his part, is equally anomalous. A well known fan of smoking marijuana, Diaz was once asked by a reporter whether he felt his pot smoking was getting in the way of his fighting career. In typically deadpan fashion, Diaz replied that, in his opinion, his fighting was getting in the way of his marijuana smoking. His fondness for cannabis cost him the biggest win of his career, when his gogoplata victory against PRIDE Lightweight king Takanori Gomi was changed to a no contest after he failed the post-fight drug test. Another puzzling thing about Nick Diaz is that he is one of the most skilled grapplers in the sport today but, like Shamrock, tends to forego takedowns in favor of standing and boxing his opponents. While he lacks any sort of significant power, Diaz’s jab has proven to be one of the most effective weapons in MMA. His awkward but technical boxing has frustrated any number of opponents. Even so, he is clearly at his best on the ground, where his skill set matches anyone’s.
This is an extremely difficult fight to predict, since both guys are prone to doing inexplicable things. One important consideration is that Shamrock will go into the fight with a fairly significant weight advantage. It’s a fairly safe bet that Shamrock will try to keep the fight standing. The biggest question is whether Diaz or oblige or try to take Shamrock down, and furthermore whether he will even be able to do so.
Against Cung Le, Shamrock proved that he has literally zero interest in grappling. Even when he was getting manhandled on his feet, he didn’t try for so much as a single takedown. I think that plays into Diaz’s favor. He can stand and box Shamrock without worrying about defending the shot, while Shamrock will have to be more wary standing to keep the rangy Diaz away from him. Ultimately, I think that Diaz has given away enough wins in his career by refusing to take an opponent down to finally learn his lesson. I doubt he will go for the takedown immediately, though, which means that this fight can go one of two ways. Either Diaz’s boxing will confound Shamrock and he will win an awkward decision, or Shamrock will outclass him on the feet, forcing him to take Shamrock down. In that scenario, I see Diaz handling Shamrock easily, both because he is a better grappler than Frank ever was and because Frank no longer trains on the ground to any real degree.
Either way, I see Diaz coming out ahead in this one.
