If you paid to see a show on Saturday at UFC 183, you certainly got your money’s worth—even at the fight company’s newly inflated pay-per-view asking price.
If you paid to see a fight? Well, you got more than you bargained for there too, although the outcome was never really in doubt.
In the end, returning former champion Anderson Silva walked away with a clear-cut unanimous-decision win over the always game Nick Diaz. Even in victory, however, Silva’s considerable star power couldn’t totally outshine The Nick Diaz Experience.
Diaz sneered and postured. He danced and mugged. Though he was outsized and outgunned, he went toe-to-toe with the greatest mixed martial artist of all time for five complete—if not necessarily triumphant—rounds. After the judges returned a near clean-sweep verdict in favor of Silva (49-46, 50-45 x 2), Diaz got on the mic and claimed victory.
In other words, it was vintage stuff from the president of the 209.
“I felt like I was ahead most of the time,” he told UFC color commentator Joe Rogan. “I was asking (before) the last round, ‘Am I winning? Am I losing this fight? Is it close?’ I don’t know how he wins, on damage or what? I felt like I won every round.”
Diaz entered the bout as more than a 3-1 underdog, according to Odds Shark. Coming off back-to-back losses and nearly two years out on self-imposed semi-retirement, he was stepping up in weight to take on perhaps the most revered and feared fighter in UFC history.
Naturally, Diaz showed no fear or any reverence for the 39-year-old Silva, who had also spent 14 months on the shelf after a career-threatening leg injury. Diaz’s straightforward, high-volume striking style was thought to be a tailor-made showcase fight for Silva in his return. Instead, Diaz supplied most of the entertainment.
From the opening bell, he took the center of the Octagon, letting it fly with his trademark trash talk and daring Silva to engage with him on the feet. Diaz waggled his chin in the air, hung his hands at his waist and occasionally struck odd, samurai-style poses with his fists together and his elbows jutting out at shoulder level.
In the past, Silva’s modus operandi had been to start slow, using the opening minutes of a fight to scout his opponent for weaknesses. Once he saw what he liked, he would either bait his foe into an ill-advised attack or go on the offensive and end the fight quickly and with extreme prejudice.
Diaz, however, didn’t seem to want to play that game. With just under a minute gone in the fight, he voluntarily dropped to his backside and lay flat on the canvas, beckoning Silva in. Five seconds later—in a move reminiscent of Silva’s mind games against Stephan Bonnar at UFC 153—he backpedaled to the fence and invited The Spider to join him there.
Silva didn’t have much chance to respond to the invitation before referee John McCarthy told Diaz to get busy. In response, Diaz walked to the middle of the cage and squatted low. He stopped moving, almost turning his back. At one point, he appeared to drop his hands and ask McCarthy a question. All the while, he continued to taunt Silva.
It all made for a weird and wonderful scene. The fight unfolded in fitting fashion from there.
Diaz scored frequently with low kicks and got off with his characteristic boxing combinations. As the bout wore on, however, Silva got the better of the majority of the exchanges. Diaz’s left eye was bloodied, and Silva continued to press forward without so much as a scratch showing on his face.
To the end, however, Diaz was undaunted. When the final decision was announced, he and his corner reacted with disbelief, though it was hard to tell if that was also just part of the overall act.
If Diaz had pulled off this sort of performance against Silva a few years ago, it would have gone down as one of the great losing efforts in UFC history. At this stage in both men’s careers, however, it was just a fun fight in a year where the organization promises to deliver a boatload of them.
Much of the intrigue surrounding this matchup concerned whether Silva would still look like himself after taking so much time off. He did—mostly—but he left an impression of a fighter in decline. It’s likely he will fight again, but at this point, we have no idea if he could hold his own against the UFC’s top middleweights. A trilogy with champion Chris Weidman seems wholly unnecessary.
Diaz, too, has probably seen his best days come and go. This loss dropped him to 0-3 in his last trio of Octagon appearances, and the time when we thought he might have been a UFC champion now seems a world away.
But as long as he continues to fight, he’ll remain a marketable personality.
Fans will continue to tune in, maybe not even caring if he wins or loses, because—no matter what else happens—the Nick Diaz Show is still as good as ever.
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