Diaz's mad skills too much for Miller
They say Nate Diaz is filled with hate.
They look at the middle fingers he flips at the cameras and figure it's a sign of some inner rage. They look at moments like right at the beginning of Diaz’s UFC on FOX fight against Jim Miller Saturday night — when he pulled the insulting move of not touching gloves at top of the first round — and figure that's just him being a jerk, just a Diaz being a Diaz. They look at the middle of the second round on Saturday at the Izod Center, when Diaz started taunting the calm, composed Miller, flailing his arms in the air and smacking himself in the face a couple times, and they figure that's just one more example of how Diaz just isn’t a very refined guy.
What they don't see, however, is that his rage is calculated, his taunts are planned, and all that hate is really just a mark of genius.
This is what the score sheet will read from Saturday night: The younger of the Fighting Diaz Brothers submitted Miller with 49 seconds left in the second round with a guillotine choke. Nate Diaz flat-out dominated the fight from beginning to end, relying on his strength of punching and kicking and yet turning Miller's wrestling strength on him.
But genius does not show up in a score sheet.
And Diaz's genius was evident in how he approached this fight from beginning to end. He didn't talk smack against the modest, reserved Miller in the weeks leading up to the fight, knowing that Miller would be too disciplined to bite. He kicked off the first round with the insult, and then, just when he had Miller rattled and off his game in the second round, he taunted him, threw up his arms, played with his opponent, challenged Miller to come after him.
Make no bones about it: The taunts were a challenge to Miller's manhood. But it was not just some punk move on Diaz’s part. It was genius, and it worked. After the taunts, Miller came after Diaz as hard as he did the entire fight, fighting with anger instead of focus.
A minute later, Diaz had won.
"I wasn’t really talking, was I?" Diaz told FOXSports.com afterward, speaking of his second-round trash talk. "I just felt like he wasn't landing any punches, so I got a little more confident in there."
Pure genius. And that from a man whose thuggish, few-words reputation is anything but genius.
"I think the Diaz brothers both have a very unique style," UFC president Dana White said. "I’ll be sitting out there with other fighters and stuff, and they’ll say, 'God, he looks slow.' Or, 'God, he doesn't seem like he's hitting that hard.' And as soon as he said it — Ding! As soon as he said it, he dropped Miller."
On paper, the Miller-Diaz main event for UFC on FOX 3 looked like a matchup between two fighters who were perfect foils for each other. It was Miller, the hometown Jersey boy who walked out to Creedence Clearwater Revival, versus Diaz, the California kid who walked out to Tupac Shakur. It was soft-spoken modesty versus loudmouthed brashness. It was a compact ground game versus a lanky standup game.
And it was a matchup between lightweights who each have a brother fighting in the UFC's welterweight division. There was no shortage of Twitter suggestions leading up to the fight that Dan Miller ought to fight Nick Diaz, and start a UFC family feud on the scale of the Hatfields and the McCoys.
On paper, it seemed like an even match. But when it came time to step into the Octagon, Diaz overwhelmed Miller.
"He had my number, you know?" Miller said afterward. "Nate controlled the fight from bell to bell. I shouldn't have let him have the opportunity to be sneaky. He took the momentum and never let me get any significant shots in there."
In a sense, Diaz got a bit of redemption Saturday night for his disgraced older brother, who lost a welterweight interim title fight against Carlos Condit in February, then failed a drug test and was suspended. Nick Diaz cornered for his brother on Saturday night, cheered him and ran into the Octagon after his brother perhaps gained a shot at the lightweight title.
The co-main event was an impressive fight, too, between two four-time All-American college wrestlers. Johny Hendricks won a split decision against Josh Koscheck in the welterweight fight that could have gone either way. The entire arena was allayed against the hugely unpopular Koscheck, but when the judges’ decision was announced, plenty were surprised.
The best evidence of Hendricks' win could be seen not on the judge's scorecards but on the fighters' faces: The bearded Hendricks looked unscathed at the end of the fight, while Koscheck's right eye was bruised and swollen.
When the split decision was announced, Hendricks jumped up and down, as surprised as anyone that the fight went his way.
That fight was hard-fought and a crowd-pleaser, but neither Koscheck nor Hendricks rivaled the fighting genius that Diaz displayed.
After his victory, you might have expected the hate-filled Diaz to taunt the opponent he'd just manhandled, or to throw a flurry of curses at the camera. But no. Diaz went over to Miller, gave him a big hug and raised Miller's hand in the air. He spent a couple minutes thanking what seemed like every coach he'd ever worked with. He smiled, and said, "I was behind enemy lines, and now I'm going home to California, baby."
The hate was gone. All that was left was genius.
You can follow Reid Forgrave on Twitter @reidforgrave, become a fan on Facebook or email him at reidforgrave@gmail.com.
