Ok, so last night turned out to be yet another epic night for the Cesar Gracie lads, as both Nick Diaz and Gilbert Melendez defended their belts with first round, stoppage wins. While things looked a little dicey for Nick on a couple of occasions, after getting ‘invited’ to the mat by Paul Daley’s fists, the welterweight pulled out the win in ‘this is effin awesome’ fashion. Gilbert’s performance? Well, it was a little bit more, shall we say, flawless, as he hardly worked up a sweat while viciously beating down Tatsuya Kawajiri.
Understandably, the lightweight champ was pretty amped up after the win, which lets remember, came over a guy in Kawajiri who dominated Josh Thomson this past December. Melendez has always maintained that he can hang with the UFC’s best, and certainly last night’s win only furthered his point. Speaking after his 19th career victory last night, Melendez continued on this theme (thanks to MMA Junkie for the quote) saying:
“I know I’m not the UFC champion, but I’ve been around this sport a lot longer than Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard,” Melendez said. “If you look at the past and what I’ve accomplished, I’ve accomplished more.”…”Not to take anything away from those guys. They’re great fighters. I’m just trying represent my organization and my team.”
Melendez has been fighting since 2002 while Edgar and Maynard transitioned into 2005 and 2006 respectively, and “El Nino” was throwing down in Pride when most MMA fans hadn’t even heard of the current UFC stars. So, does this mean Melendez can beat either guy? Guess someone will just have to get them together and find out….