UFC 244: Inside the Octagon - Masvidal vs Diaz

In this episode of Inside the Octagon, we look at the massive main event at Madison Square Garden between two of the UFC's biggest earners, Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz, with back-to-back knockout victories, including a game-record elimination of Ben Askren. Wittstock is Redhawks Bing, more defeated, however, in the 90s he faces a fearless opponent who is discarded with the best and now hungry for a new type of challenge or a kill. They live, they shoot two of the baddest fighters on the planet fighting for the BMF. belts this preview is not only necessary it's super necessary hello and welcome to your C's inside the

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jeonghan alongside Dan Hardy and our show here can't get much bigger than this we're talking about UFC 244 the den of belts BMF Madison Square Garden Diaz Maz Vidal main event, the moment, everything, I love everything, first of all, do you agree with BMF 100%?

Where do I sign up? Hats in the ring. I am your entire belt. To me, it's more exciting than all the belts in the sport. I love it, I love the gimmick, I love the game, I love the two characters involved, whether it continues after this point I don't even mind, we needed a special belt to celebrate this moment and that's fine, you know the ones two best characters. in the division for me, yes, well, let's mention the facts and the statistics, and a couple of things I like about this is that two former lightweight fighters may have to fight for the belts.

Jorge fought for the Strikeforce lightweight belt against Gilbert Melendez, yes too. Funnily enough, such storied careers, but coming at this point when they are both 34 years old to go head to head, a couple of things to look at, I mean a lot of experience here, but that's just mixed martial arts, the same would apply to Nate Yes, I have something. street searches, I mean the west coast, that's it, there's footage of Maz Vidal fighting in parking lots, footage of Diaz fighting in gyms. I mean, these guys have been at this a long time since before mixed martial arts was a thing, that's the reality.

Also, these guys have been in combat sports and they wanted to test themselves against other people in any type of combat scenario they can and like you said, both the 34d and the slightly bigger fighter as far as height goes, but I'd say Fidel's mass is probably a little more muscular. hits lightly Atwell definitely hits harder than Diaz, I think he'll be stronger too, but I mean, we look at all these stats, that's the one we don't need anything else first, it's not and the history of the UFC five seconds. I mean that beats every other stat on the board for me because when you can do that to someone, especially someone who is undefeated, like aspirin, there are so many things we can read from that knockout and I have some clips that I want to talk about this , but to me it was fascinating, not only because he was able to get the knockout, but he was able to read it before the fight even started and apply it within the first few seconds of the fight.

Raise the curtain now because when we were talking about how we're going to start the show, you wanted to talk about Diaz's fast starts and I'm confused, so the correction you mean Maz Vidal's fast arts, he's the guy who just got a five. second win, but you corrected me carefully as you normally do and why we go with D as fast starts instead of it doesn't matter, it's okay because because of the opponent he has liked, Diaz, yes, the gem relieves a slow starter, usually He likes it, he knows it. He's the distance fighter, he knows that he has the marathon in the back, in the gas tank, so you know that as the fight goes on, his stats usually improve.

I mean, you look at the McGregor fight which was a perfect example, but sometimes. he faces opponents that I have a skill set that no, he shouldn't be given much space. Pettis is a great example. I couldn't give Pettis too much space because Pettis needs space to set up his attacks and the way Diaz closes distance, yes, he can be stubborn at times, he can be reckless, he makes shots, but that's part of the beauty of his game, why he walks forward, he walks between people's shots because they are on the back foot, they are his blows don't have as much pain, they are discouraged because he constantly advances and they are constantly touched, which means that they only think about his offensive the Half the time, if so, it wears the guys down again.

Rory Markham, a big puncher, a big puncher in the division, had a heavyweight in this fight, coming in at 177. This was Nate's first fight at welterweight, so what does Nate do? I'm going to put pressure on him right away and I know he had a tough weight cut and I know he can be overwhelmed, put pressure on him, eventually Roy Markham did something you wouldn't have done if he was fighting someone who through individual punches with more power lowered his head because he was being hit with a barrage of blows that were not enough. The punch doesn't hurt, it hurts, but they were overwhelming him and when you get overwhelmed you don't cover up and close your eyes like you do with power punches, you get this kind of thing where you try to move your head.

Cover yourself and move your head away and what Mark did and that's he lowered his head, which left him vulnerable to the knee, but the things that date other people he does so well that he does them consistently all the time. throughout his career, that is not the case. really changed a lot, meaning that when crazy Vidal was making his reads on his opponents, he has a lot to work with with Moz Fidel in the first round, if Diaz just falls behind, Moz Fidel was going to play this, he will prove it, look . with that right hook, I mean, I had no intention of stopping this here, this just caught my attention because by the way he throws this punch you can tell that he has no intention of landing on it, he's testing the reactions of Daren's Hill, he's watching what Darren Hill does it with his hands with his head with his guard when he moves look at this what is this lead left hook that throws mozz Vidal here he comes around the outside of the hand he has no interest in London in this shot he's just feeling look what Darren does when he's controlling that front hand, he throws it, he throws it briefly and he stops it before landing because he saw Darren's Hill back up and walk away with his chin up and his arms forward, so then you go ahead and try it one more time and come there. with the second shot there, but it has that reading, so twice he's throwing that technique, the first time he threw it, he threw it short, it didn't even land the second time he threw it, just to check that the target was there, he threw it and played Darren's Hill was at the end with his hands outstretched and his chin up, so next time and the commitment to this shot is so different the speed from 0 to 60 where it takes off what's the next angle, I mean, he just goes and hits it right away and that punch he shoots and he throws it with so much intention that he stands square and tries to hit it as he falls, he knew he was going to land that punch, that's why he tensed it the exact same way he did it, so You Look, Xin Haskins' game is quite predictable.

You think right, so we know what a scream is. A scream comes out and the level changes. Askren wants to change levels and make everyone fall to the ground, so what I'm looking for in this if I'm like Vidal. What are the trends in this level change and when we see him come out here, Robbie Lawler takes the center? He's waiting for that level change, so Robbie Lala's game plan is to expand, which is exactly what he does, but he watches as the current body exits. He bends his abdomen, puts his head to the left and extends his arms, just remember that moment there on the right, we always need to cut almost almost, but you can see this different angle from behind, you can see much more the position in which you take aspirin and This is what Maas Vidal was looking at, so what is this position here?

Here's aspirin. He is leaving. He's waiting for that hit from Robbie Lawler. The level changes. There we are. Head down. His arms are out to the sides. So there's nothing blocking that center channel. So aspirin. heads there, let's have some beautiful little fighting measures to get to Robbie Lawler's side, but that was enough for Fidel to exploit him and you can see the confidence in his central knees as if you don't even know what's coming you don't even know what's coming so a scream comes out it's a good time boom look we're a screen body you're right you can put Robbie Lawler in there Robbie Lawler doesn't know where his body is this might I don't know where his head is well it's right at the end from Maz Fidel's neon force area somewhere, same thing again, it's so predictable, I knew he was going to change levels with his head to the left side, which meant his left knee was like this.

The right knee was the one he was going to have to use, so he pushed himself to raise that knee and be ready to face him as he changed levels. That's where I got so excited about that knockout. He expected that predictability from Askren and he exploited it to great effect. The fastest knockout in UFC history. One of the most predictable fighters in the UFC is Nate Diaz. You know exactly what he's going to do. He'll throw that lead hand for a long time. he'll lean on his lead leg, he'll be susceptible to the low kick, you know, we've seen so many different things work against Nate Diaz from the beginning of his UFC career to the end, if I'm that fertile, I'm looking at all the research I have to do.

I can choose my finishing techniques, so I would expect Maz Vidal to come into this game with a few different options and all he needs to do now is allow Nate Diaz to fall into the prediction skills we've seen over the years. Throughout his career, a master dummy also has a rich history in combat sports, which further makes him a very intelligent fighter with a great set of technical skills, particularly with kickboxing, yes and again because he is not a big powerful puncher. I feel this is a huge benefit to not being a knockout puncher, the knockouts in his game come from perfect placement, setting traps, reading prediction skills and placing his shots perfectly and no matter who he has in front of him, his ability to dismantle them with a variety. of different techniques, his is a beautiful thing, the way he puts his hand strikes together and no one figured out those hand strikes better than Jake Ellenberger.

This work against the fence here is really nice and the good thing about Maz Vidal's style is that he builds. throughout the rounds, so if it's a five-round fight and you don't want to start fast in the first round, you can gradually build up until you start to land. You know blitz combinations like this, if he takes him out early, if he picks Diaz. out early in the first round will hurt him will slow him down will discourage him Diaz has a lot of scar tissue and could potentially open him up there also causes him even more problems and then it develops into this kind of rhythm where and this can happen at any point in the fight this could being the first second third until the end of the round and the end of the fight how to find those opportunities to knock people out to land that significant shot that does the damage beautiful work here against Ross Pearson also against hook and the following clip shows you how his eyes work, so let's celebrate this too and watch Matt's videos.

His eyes work faster than his reaction time. I think he recognized that Ross Pearson was moving. out of range of this shot and I knew it was going to miss, but I was perfectly prepared, so we have a long lazy left hook, he tends to use that and look how his shoulders are quite square. He was watching him shadow this. when he was in Florida and it was really interesting how he throws his left hook because he throws it really long, he throws it like it's fully extended and then he brings it back in and I think the reason is because he likes it. try it. and putting people on his right hand, okay, I think he uses it as a directional technique to draw him towards the right hand, so in this circumstance, when he hit Ross with that, I expected him to come towards the right hand, but Ross actually slid further than he intended, but look at the adaptation for Ross to slide, since vidoe knows he missed the hit, but it comes right away, look how long this hook is, look how much he extends the bounce, what's there? a punch outside the socket I mean it's a perfect left hook, yes it's beautiful, elbows behind the fist which means the wrist is fully supported, the shoulder is fully extended outside the socket, so you're using every half inch of reach he has there, which I know to get to Diaz you're going to have to because he leans back a lot, right in one of the places where you can exploit the aziz when he leans and I feel like Moz Fidel has the skills on footwork to be able to cover that distance. landing those kind of punches, I mean, it was one of thebest shots he landed and he's so calm it's like he was so present in that moment.

This is another benefit to the experience you have when you land that knockout punch. he's not going to meet Nate Diaz at guard and try to finish and we know Nate likes to play possum a little bit because we know it's going to take a shot and he's going to go down, they're going to say, come on. come and play jiu-jitsu with me dominated I won't play that game yeah don't go anywhere there's a lot more to come after the break welcome back to the UFC inside the

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where we're talking about the main event at UFC 244 for the BMF Title easy method abroadDíaz, then we have already talked about the pressure game of Díaz, the veteran, conveys the intelligence of both fighters and you finished with Jorge Masvidal's kickboxing before he broke well.

I think that's why Diaz needs to stop quite a bit. fast, he needs to be the fighter who puts pressure early because Maz Vidal likes to have a little breathing room in the early rounds to read and prepare his opponents. He is also very good at exploiting prediction abilities quite a bit, of which there are many. In Diaz's game, being the fighter who puts pressure from the beginning, putting him under that pressure forced him to be on the defensive, might be the best game plan for Diaz, there is still risk of course yes, but I think it's Better than the risk of staying back and waiting and seeing what.

Maz Vidal can make a pretty general statement, but fighters want to get into a state of flow, they want that period where everything comes together physically, chemically and mentally and we've definitely seen that with the two Diaz brothers, but it's a beautiful thing about see with Nate Diaz. and you really know when he gets to that place, yeah you know, he's very expressive about it and I think that's one of the reasons why I want to say that Nate is probably the best example of a fighter who is very outwardly emotional when he fights. , like you know when it happens. the fights go his way because he starts having fun he starts talking he starts pointing he starts laughing he starts cursing his opponents he starts slapping them just don't insult them anymore and this state of flow Diaz said it's a dangerous individual this is the version you don't want finding out this is the guy that you don't want to allow to establish himself in the fight at any point because when he gets to this stage when he's loose and you know he's confident he feels comfortable, lands the shots better, takes better shots, like the fight with Johnson , which was a perfect example because his lead leg got eaten in the first round, but then in the second round he was able to engage Johnson in a fight and then he's having fun.

He's having a good time, he's slapping him, he's pushing him, he's pointing at him and you have to think about what that's like on the receiving end, how frustrating that would be, especially if your mom is Vidal, if you're one of the veterans of the game. you want that respect so you have someone slapping you and pointing inside your head but the bigger point is how it affects Nate himself when when this is her when he's in this state this is the Nate that's hard to be here is where his conditioning seems almost endless where his chin seems almost infinite where his durability is where he knows his ability to absorb leg kicks it just all seems to take a backseat as soon as he finds the place where he's just fighting, he's just winning the fight and that is a psychological issue, that is where Maz for Down needs to stop that progress, he needs to not allow Nate to have so many victories in the rounds that he gets to that state where he feels like he fights him because that is not the worst version of Díaz to deal with if you are his opponent.

You were talking about the Mezra Doll trap earlier and one thing I think Diaz is outwardly saying is that he's going to do it. he can turn fighters into fighters and that I guess is like one of the big traps that he sets in most of his fights, yeah, well, I mean, we saw this, we discussed this before them for the first McGregor fight, you know, sit next to the Thames we were discussing it the Diaz brothers don't wrestle they don't need it they have some wrestling you know we can go back to Nate's race and watch double legs where he takes people to the fence and I don't say that they don't have it, but their game plan usually revolves around forcing you to fight because you get slapped in the face again and it works very well because they are durable, they trust that they have great conditioning. they can walk people down, they take a shot really well, which means a big power hitter like Melvin Guillard gets discouraged and then this kind of thing starts happening where they start shooting and then you basically run into a trap to bears with the Diaz brothers, Nate, they're going to wrap your neck, there's a beautiful guillotine there like there's no way out of that for him, there's no way out of that foot for Melvin Guillard, especially since they gassed him, he was tired psychologically, probably broken too, same with Miller shoots against the fence, shoots on Nate's terms, not his own terms, that's why he shot straight into a guillotine, someone who has had great success and also takedowns, but He went straight to it because he wasn't shooting on his own. and McGregor's is the perfect example because McGregor didn't really want a fight, we knew that going in he wanted to stay with Nate until he knocked him out, so when he got to this stage it's already bad news.

Greg's foot, I mean, that's just not going to work because he's tired, he's banged up, he's at welterweight against a big guy in this division, Nate's real game is on the court, but he doesn't have any real way to carry people to the ground. floor unless you force them to choose the option themselves, that's where your pressure comes in, now we can speculate where this fight could take place, who will shoot who, what, where and how, but other than that let's look at Maz Badal and his ability to fight. he has shown us that he definitely has some skills in those areas yes he is a good wrestler people underestimate his wrestling they underestimate his takedown defense underrated wrestling ability a lot of this comes from experiencing a lot of this always Romero in his corner Zack Lee exactly and a lot of that, too, depends on knowing where you win the fights en masse.

Verdun knows he wins his fights on the feet, so he will build his entire game around keeping fights on the feet and against Demian Maia he probably faced the best fighter in the division, the guy who can take everyone's back and choke them out. , and what's so significant about this to me is that he was on Maz Fidel's back two or three times before this point, so this is about 90 seconds into the first round. right, Maz Vidal was going to stand here, now there is Demian Maia on his back, the triangles of the body enclosed him, he will look at his corner and nod and say: yes, we are all fine, I got it, we are all fine, everyone knows that no It's good, but At this point, it's already been three minutes, okay, we're still in the same round.

Maz Fidel defended those who fought in the first minute, he still had Damien Meyer on his back. Three minutes have passed, that shows patience, it shows awareness, it shows the danger he is in. We meet my back, we have a beautiful two-on-one hold in this hold here, so he has the two-on-one. She has placed the arm to the other side of her head to be safe, so now there is no symbolic arm to place under her head because Maya is completely on this side of her body so this is the choking arm here this is the choke arm here now is not in this can't drag around the neck so he pissed off Vidal keeping good control of that and in the last 30 seconds of the fight when he finally had a chance to land some punches this is the way in which Mads Vidal fights, just bang bang bang bang bang right away, poison in these shots like knowing when to put your foot on the gas knowing when are the moments to apply pressure and when to defend takedowns, it will be very important for him in this case because that also means he knows when to throw punches in a punching exchange and when to back away, when to circle. away, so you'll be less likely to get pinned against the fence under a barrage and feel like your only option is to change levels if we find miles without shooting for takedowns because you're under pressure, fights are already getting out of hand, thats the reality.

To me, because he's fighting in a way that his opponents choose for him, that's fine, and that's where Nate is so good that he makes people do things they don't want to do. Moz Fidel teaches people what they are doing wrong with division. perfect second moment, there are such different fighters, the most difficult lesson, a fascinating fight, very, very different fighters, I think we will see developments in both guys' games, I think they are, you know, the added belt and the attention to this fight, he'll add an extra five ten percent to these guys performances, they both want to take that belt, it might be the only time anyone wins a BMF, although in the UFC, yeah, it's a special fight, yeah, do you think Maz Vidal's form?

He'll help you get there when you're up against someone like Diaz who doesn't give a damn what you bring. Yes, I think so because I think Maz Vidal doesn't need the psychological impact on his opponent before he starts the fight. If he gets it, it's an advantage, but I don't think he needs it and I think you can guarantee that you won't have a psychological advantage over a Diaz going into a fight. I think the psychological advantage is established in the rounds. So that's why at the press conference there wasn't a lot of trash talk because it would be a waste of energy, but these guys respect each other, they know what they bring to the table, the fight is going to happen on fight night in the octagon. and there is no need for any moment before the two go around the realest guys in the sport, there is no need for that supplier in this fight because there is no real advantage to be wonderful, the fight begins mmm, but the added prestige of This unique belt does.

That changes something for any of these fighters coming up, as it just adds to the occasion. I think I just think he rises to the occasion because I think Mads Vidal already was, as long as he doesn't suffer a defeat. I think he already is. Still, he's close enough to a title shot to not really worry about what this belt means to him if he gets it with me. I feel like if he gets this belt, it will quickly lead him to an actual light welterweight title, wherever that may be. he probably wants to be welterweight, I imagine that will accelerate him towards that because it will raise the profile of these two guys, their popularity will increase even more, so the risk is very high for sure and I like these belts because it gets people talking of things and I'm not a big fan of working titles but these special occasions but only when they're super necessary this is super Ness this is super necessary finesse I love it thank you so much Dan great vision fun fights and aquatic. between two veteran guys who have been so close that they are getting UFC gold and it has been a resurrection of their careers to see them where they are now keep the conversation using the hash tag inside the octagon use the handle in UFC Europe thank you very much for watching see you next time