Kron Gracie on Nick Diaz: ‘He’s going to be a tough fight for anyone’

Back from a successful trip to Tokyo, Japan, where he got his first MMA victory with a 65-second armbar over Hyung Soo Kim, Kron Gracie has had no time to relax.

A multiple time jiu-jitsu and grappling champion, Kron Gracie trained at Cesar Gracie’s gym in California for his MMA bout, and returned to the gym to assist Nick Diaz in the final weeks of his training camp for a middleweight clash with former UFC champion Anderson Silva on Jan. 31.

“I’ve been training with him for a long time,” Gracie told MMAFighting.com of his training sessions with Diaz. “When I came back from Japan, I went back to the gym to train with him again.”

Diaz makes his return to the Octagon most two years after his last fight, a unanimous decision loss to then-welterweight kingpin Georges St-Pierre. Silva also enters the cage coming off back-to-back losses, a pair of TKO defeats to 185-pound champion Chris Weidman.

“I think Nick is an excellent athlete,” Gracie said of the match-up. “He really studies every martial art, so he’s a clever and dangerous guy. He has a great mentality for fighting, so I think he’s going to be a tough fight for anyone.”

Both Diaz and Silva were riding the longest winning streaks of their careers before their recent setbacks, and Gracie believes Diaz will use the right strategy to handle “The Spider” his third loss in a row.

“I don’t know what he’s strategy is going to be,” he said, “but whatever he chooses to do, I’m sure it’s going to be the best one.”

Back from a successful trip to Tokyo, Japan, where he got his first MMA victory with a 65-second armbar over Hyung Soo Kim, Kron Gracie has had no time to relax.

A multiple time jiu-jitsu and grappling champion, Kron Gracie trained at Cesar Gracie’s gym in California for his MMA bout, and returned to the gym to assist Nick Diaz in the final weeks of his training camp for a middleweight clash with former UFC champion Anderson Silva on Jan. 31.

“I’ve been training with him for a long time,” Gracie told MMAFighting.com of his training sessions with Diaz. “When I came back from Japan, I went back to the gym to train with him again.”

Diaz makes his return to the Octagon most two years after his last fight, a unanimous decision loss to then-welterweight kingpin Georges St-Pierre. Silva also enters the cage coming off back-to-back losses, a pair of TKO defeats to 185-pound champion Chris Weidman.

“I think Nick is an excellent athlete,” Gracie said of the match-up. “He really studies every martial art, so he’s a clever and dangerous guy. He has a great mentality for fighting, so I think he’s going to be a tough fight for anyone.”

Both Diaz and Silva were riding the longest winning streaks of their careers before their recent setbacks, and Gracie believes Diaz will use the right strategy to handle “The Spider” his third loss in a row.

“I don’t know what he’s strategy is going to be,” he said, “but whatever he chooses to do, I’m sure it’s going to be the best one.”