On paper, as the saying goes, this was to be a match of wills. Diaz is an extreme pressure fighter. His long arms and endless cardio power the rat-tat-tat of his constant punching. His very formidable Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu skills virtually forces fighters to stand and strike with him. Condit seems a classic "jack-of-all-trades" kind of fighter. He possesses serious punching power and solid, if unspectacular, skills in all other areas.
There were significant questions to be answered going into this fight. Could Condit stand up to Diaz's pressure? Could Diaz take Condit's power and continue throwing combination after combination? While Diaz rarely seeks to take the fight to the ground these days, would Condit succumb to Diaz's barrage and take the risk of grappling with the Cesar Gracie standout?
What didn't seem to be a question was whether the fight would be "exciting". Exciting in the blood-lusting fan's sense of excitement. Condit had always been known to push the pace himself, and so it was assumed that the two warriors would slam into each other in the center of the Octagon like two fighting rams and we'd see who was the best man that night. But Condit, trained by the excellent Greg Jackson, had other ideas. Instead of engaging head on, Condit moved. And circled. And moved some more. Rarely did he allow Diaz to throw more than two punches in any combination. Rarely did he exchange with Diaz, instead choosing to pick his shots and avoid damage.
The question coming out of that fight read unexpectedly: Is "running" an acceptable strategy for winning a World Championship?
In boxing, many of the greats have "gotten on their bicycle" to beat physically stronger or more imposing opponents. Young Cassius Clay used excellent footwork and movement to frustrate and tire Sonny Liston. Sugar Ray Robinson fought wars against "The Ragin' Bull" Jake LaMotta and used great movement to keep Jake from making Sugar Ray his own personal china shop.
In MMA, however, this strategy is often frowned upon. Fighters are expected to mix it up much more and, given that slugfests sell tickets, they often comply. When Frankie Edgar slapped around BJ Penn for five rounds, the consensus was that he ran to win and BJ would catch him when they fought again. Instead Edgar slapped him around a bit harder. In near perfect symmetry, Carlos Condit won a tight decision over Nick Diaz by using movement and footwork. The immediate reaction is for a rematch, the implication being that Diaz will catch Condit next time. But let's deal with two questions for the fight: Is it ok to win by using movement (you may call it running if you like)? And, did this fight show a weakness in Nick Diaz's game, or was there something else at play?
Let's address the first question, well, first. Some statistics:
While Carlos Condit landed more total strikes and more "significant" strikes, he was actually outstruck in terms of head and body shots. Recall, for a moment, Machida v. Shogun I. In many ways, it was a similar fight to Diaz v. Condit. Neither fight had many ground moments. In both cases one fighter constantly moved forward, even if they didn't land many more shots. In both cases one fighter had huge advantages in leg attacks. In Machida v. Shogun, Shogun was the fighter who attacked more often. He was the fighter who landed more shots (89 to 50), but actually landed fewer "power" shots (15 to 13). His big advantage was in leg attacks (73 to 34). Machida, of course, won a very close decision. The talk after the fight was that while Shogun came forward and landed many leg kicks, leg kicks don't win fights. Whatever.
In this fight, Diaz landed more shots to the head and body (111 to 91), but was badly outstruck to the legs (68 to 6) despite coming forward often. And in this case, Condit got the narrow decision. What might be the difference?
To a large extent the difference might simply be a matter of degrees. Being outstruck more than 10-1 in leg attacks (versus 2-1 for Machida) might have been enough to sway the judges. It also could be simply a matter of different judges and different opinions, as subjective judging is always vulnerable to.
In any case, it is unfair to Condit to say that he won in some cheap or cowardly way. He used the strategy that best gave him a chance to win and executed it almost perfectly. Instead, Nick Diaz fans, along with Nick and his camp, should be focused on the tactical mistakes Nick made in the fight and on closing the obvious holes that Condit revealed. Consider legendary boxing trainer Freddie Roach's take (pre-fight) on Nick Diaz's boxing. Roach made an very important distinction in the video. He said Nick had great hands, but wasn't a great boxer. The interviewer was confused by this and asked the difference. Roach said boxing was about footwork, defense, and head movement also. Nick had great hands, but not necessarily the rest.
Indeed throughout the fight, two things were apparent to me. One, Nick Diaz didn't have the skills to cut off the ring with footwork. He consistently got himself out of position to hold Condit in one area by over-committing to punches early in an exchange. Nick loves to throw a hook as his 2nd or 3rd punch, while many of his more powerful shots have a natural loop to them. To throw the hook, Diaz moved in on Condit (often after only one setup strike) and Condit simply used the closeness to move away to whichever side the hook wasn't coming from. If you can't literally press your opponent against the fence to hold him in place, you must keep a bit of distance between yourself and your opponent and straighter punches (along with good sidestepping footwork) to hold him in place until he covers up or commits to exchanging. Then you can unload harder techniques. Further, the obvious way to slow down movement is to use leg attacks. Like BJ, Diaz was partially victimized by not having that tool to slow Condit down.
Two, Nick was unable to go to step 2 in any attack. Step 1 is simply throwing a technique to land. An example is throwing a jab to hit your opponent in the nose. Step 2 is throwing a technique (which can also be footwork or a feint) to setup a secondary strike. An example is throwing a jab to cause a reaction from your opponent and hitting him with an overhand right. For Nick, he tends to throw strikes only to land flush. The point isn't to land the jab, but rather it is to "setup" the overhand right. Against someone who is using movement to stymie you, sometimes you have to feint techniques to get them to commit to going one direction and then take advantage of that movement. One of my favorite examples here uses either the spin back kick or spin back fist. Fighters are taught to circle way from their opponent's power (in my case right) hand. So they circle to my left (or their right) to avoid "running into" a power shot. As time goes on, I give the impression that I'm chasing them with my right. I give them confidence that they are doing the right thing by moving to their left all the time. Then, when they are comfortable, I fake an attack and throw the spin technique. They run right into it.
Diaz didn't seem to make this adjustment in the fight. Rather than wading in with strikes, use some feints to get Condit to commit to which way he's going to circle out, then attack him while he's moving that way. It's a great way to get someone to run into shots and, perhaps most importantly, lower their confidence and decisiveness in their movement. The latter is a key ingredient in scoring a knockout.
One final point: I read a headline asking "What can we do about boring fights?". To the keen eye, this was not really a boring fight, but I get the point of the question. To the general fan, Condit v. Diaz must've been a disappointment as it was on some level to me. The fact is, however, that boxers have two advantages to catch their "running" opponents that MMA fighters do not, a square boxing ring and many more rounds in which they can "impose their will". The Octagon is larger than most boxing rings and the absence of corners make it harder to keep fighters on one side of the cage. Since the obvious solution, go to a square cage, is not going to happen, fighters must build their games to meet this reality. They will need to build good footwork, a few long range weapons (ie. lowkicks), a strong clinch game (to take advantage of those precious moments when they do "corner" the opponent), and they must learn some advanced, many would even call them intermediate, striking tactics. It is vital for fighters to not simply pile technique upon technique without any notion of context, timing, or setup. Instead, they must learn to make the fight a story in which they are setting up their opponent for the punch-line. Thank you, thank you.
For the re-match, if Diaz works to improve his footwork, sense of distance, and setups he can win. Otherwise, I predict 5 more rounds of Condit sticking and moving his way to a date with GSP.
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