Despite the ongoing criticism of Carlos Condit‘s performance at UFC 143, his head trainer Greg Jackson felt “The Natural Born Killer” executed his gameplan perfectly to prevail over Nick Diaz.
Condit was awarded the unanimous-decision victory over Diaz and was crowned the UFC interim welterweight champion.
Although he grabbed the win, Condit’s strategy did not seem to entertain many fans, as some labelled it as “running.” Nevertheless, Jackson was confident in the Team Jackson product’s overall approach and defended Condit’s win in an exclusive interview with MMAFighting.com.
“The criticism I guess I heard this morning was that Carlos was running,” Jackson said. “You can’t really say he’s running, because he hit him more times. So that argument doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
Condit neutralized Diaz’s striking with counter-striking and movement, where he would repeatedly attack his opponent’s lead leg with leg kicks for majority of the fight. Anytime Diaz would attempt to close the distance and trap Condit in the corner, the former WEC welterweight champion would retreat and force the action back to the centre of the Octagon.
According to Jackson, the idea was to avoid Diaz’s main strength: boxing.
“He’s amazing when he gets you up against the fence. He’s amazing when he starts rolling on those combinations,” he said of Diaz. “So we left the party when that happened and then we started the party again and were able to land a lot more shots than he was.”
“There’s no reason for us to play that game,” he added.
Fans and critics reaction of Condit’s gameplan was fairly negative, and among those critics was Diaz’s head trainer Cesar Gracie.
Jackson said he wasn’t surprised to learn of Gracie’s response, considering Condit was the underdog heading into the matchup, but after pointing out the statistics, Jackson said it was evident Condit won the fight.
“All strikes, we outstruck him. Significant strikes, we outstruck him. So if you’re looking at numbers, that was all us,” he said. “If you’re hitting him, not getting hit, and moving, I’m not really sure how you can score [the fight for Diaz].”
The win for Condit will now set up a unification bout with current champion Georges St-Pierre once he returns to action later this year. Both Condit and St-Pierre are part of Greg Jackson’s MMA in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
When asked if he would play a role in their upcoming title bout, Jackson respectfully declined the offer and wants no involvement at all.
“Georges is my guy as much as Carlos is my guy,” he said.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com