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View Full Version : Interview: DIEGO SANCHEZ



Mickey
02-11-2005, 10:33
On November 5th at the UFC Ultimate Fighter 2 finale TUF season one competitor Diego Sanchez takes on Nick Diaz. Diego may have received his break in TUF but both these fighters earned their way to the top through rival California promoters KOTC for Diego and WEC/IFC for Nick. Both fighters have progressed and become more well-rounded but as for the fights fans may not have seen Nick started in California with a mostly BJJ strategy while Diego won most of his KOTC with basically ground-and-pound. The main way they have changed is Nick’s striking and Diego’s conditioning/speed. In the archives are several updates with Diego and even a couple with Nick.

KM: How do you feel about fighting Nick Diaz?
DS: I’m happy to get to fight a guy in the top 10; he is number 8 in the world. I qualified myself as a top 10 fighter for a long time but a lot of people have said ‘Diego hasn’t fought anybody’ because a lot of the guys I have fought haven’t been known yet. I’ve never been so fired up for a fight. I don’t know what his deal is, he’s trying to make it personal I guess.

KM: How so?
DS: He sent me some e-mails and stuff like that talking shit. It doesn’t get to me or anything. Ever since that I have been doing nothing but training hard and training smart.

KM: Tell me about training.
DS: I got the call in September so I had two or three weeks off when they told me I was fighting in November. I went straight to San Diego and started training with Rob Garcia on conditioning every day. We do boxing training and then strength and conditioning training, a lot of plyometrics and weight belts. I went to a top sports doctor…you know, you’ve kept track of my career I went straight after TUF to ADCC ’05 to this and that. I accumulated some you could say injuries but minor stuff because I could never afford to get any treatment. Now I’m back on my feet. I went out there for three weeks doing strict diet. I’ve never been this healthy; my body is totally detoxified and I recover faster.

KM: How did that change from preparing for the Gassaway fight?
DS: For that fight I trained eighteen days with Rob Garcia. In eighteen days I was able to get my body fat from 12 to 6 and get in the best shape of my life. I got sick right before the fight walking around the casino or on the airplane. I was fighting and coughing. In the first round I was starting to get a little tired but in no way was I gassed.

KM: It looked like you were spending a lot of energy in the first round trying to take him down. DS: There really is no pacing for me. I’m in a condition where I can sprint the whole fight. Three rounds, I could sprint the whole three rounds. Its not so much he is hard to take down, I tried to take him down straight off the bat. Usually I can do that. Brian Gassaway is very strong, he fought some tough wrestlers and I knew he’d have some tough wrestling defense. He really only defended the first takedown, it happens and you go on to something else.

KM: That was your first victory on pay-per-view. How did that feel?
DS: It felt really worthwhile. I have a lot of fans that became fans watching TUF. Then I have all my die-hard fans that believe in me and all my haters that no matter what think I’m going to lose.

KM: Most fans either love you or hate you, there isn’t any in-between but the bottom line is they all know you.
DS: The only way I’m going to win over the fans is to continue to win. Everybody wants to see a good thing come to an end or a good thing keep going. Even when I beat Matt Hughes (in the future) they will say ‘Matt Hughes was out of his prime’.

KM: Ever since Nick’s fight with Robbie Lawler he has shown a shift to using his hands much more but before that he had a similar style to Jorge Santiago who you beat. Even you and Nick had similar strategies in your early fights. Point is he has been working the hands.
DS: I started out with an Olympic wrestling coach when I was in High School. Back then Nick Diaz was still on the swim team. No matter what he does I have those four years of wrestling on him. I’m going to take him down, he isn’t going to be able to stop it. At nineteen I started doing submission. Maybe he is better at submission than me with the gi on but we aren’t fighting with a gi. I’m going to be sweaty, I’m going to be slippery, and I’m going to beat him up with leather and that isn’t jiu-jitsu. Yeah, he has trained striking but not only do I think he got lucky with Robbie Lawler, he played a good gameplan bringing Robbie Lawler out of his mindset. By doing that Robbie Lawler was going back the whole fight. (Lawler) throws wide shots and it was only a matter of time before any of the UFC fighters were going to watch tape and figure Robbie Lawler out. That is exactly what Nick Diaz did and my hat is off to him, he figured out Robbie Lawler and knocked him out but its not like Nick Diaz is a K-1 fighter. He has one other knockout that if you ask my opinion looked like a human punching bag out there. If you ask me to give Diaz the respect the other fans are giving him no, I’m not going to give it to him. I’ve been training with Francisco Bojado for two months.

KM: To me one huge factor is you were invited to ADCC ’05 and he wasn’t.
DS: I went 0-0 with two-time champion Marcelo Garcia until thirty seconds left in the match. I went nine minutes and thirty seconds going after him and it was even until thirty seconds left. I’ve beaten Pablo Popovitch who was runner-up. I had two-and-a-half weeks’ notice for that. Nick Diaz is a purple belt in jiu-jitsu. I watched his fight against Karo Parisyan and both of those guys and to me it is disheartening to see two fighters gassed in the first round.

KM: You mentioned before his being disrespectful to Lawler, throwing him off his game. How does that affect you?
DS: He sent me e-mails that were really personal, made some hateful comments to my family and my race. Talking smack about me, I’m like ‘this doesn’t have to be personal’. Why does a UFC fight come down to sending e-mails?

KM: Hateful about race? Are you sure that was Nick and not someone saying they are Nick?
DS: I sent a message (from a different account) that I was a potential sponsor (to check) and he responded. I’ve already forwarded the e-mails to Joe Silva and some others. It just makes me train harder.

KM: I’m looking at his fight against Parisyan and yours against Santiago but did you learn anything more from his two more recent fights? DS: I thought the fight with Fickett was stopped early. I didn’t think he was doing any damage to Fickett. I didn’t get much from that fight. Fickett kept trying to jump to guard on him and get that guillotine. I was like ‘what is he doing?’ It didn’t seem very smart to me. From a technical aspect I didn’t get much from that fight. The fight with Oisihi…his last two opponents I didn’t get much because I thought they fought horrible. What can I see that he is doing good when his opponents are not doing good?

KM: You just came back from Rickson Gracie’s Budo Challenge. What were your impressions of that show?
DS: I thought it was a great sports show. It was a lot of the top jiu-jitsu guys in the world there. The points system was a lot better than any jiu-jitsu tournament I’ve ever seen. Guys were actually getting more points to go for submissions, driven to go for submissions more and there were a lot more submissions. It took away the stalling aspect. To me it was an honor to be there at one of my hero’s (shows) and be one of the guests.

KM: I heard it was an invite-only crowd. Did you ask or did they offer? DS: Kid Peligro got that hooked up for me. Kid knows I’m the biggest Rickson fan out there. I think he is the smartest fighter of all time. They were selling tickets, too.

KM: I haven’t even seen results yet. How many competitors were there? DS: Each bracket had four people and there were four or five brackets.

KM: Do you know who won?
DS: I don’t know if that is out because it is going to be on TV.

KM: How about sponsors to thank.
DS: My new good sponsors Xyience. Tim Fields of course out of South Carolina. Right now I have an open door. I’m not trying to sign no deals or anything like that.

KM: Are you having trouble with sponsors because of the whole not being able to thank them on TV?
DS: It sucks but whatever. We get to still put it on our shorts. Same thing. I feel after I fight this TV fight with Nick Diaz ant eh performance I’m going to put on a lot more doors are going to open.

Done by: Keith Mills

Remco
02-11-2005, 12:01
KM: Hateful about race? Are you sure that was Nick and not someone saying they are Nick?
DS: I sent a message (from a different account) that I was a potential sponsor (to check) and he responded. I’ve already forwarded the e-mails to Joe Silva and some others. It just makes me train harder.

Doortrapt mannetje!