If Diego “The Gun” Nunes isn’t a gamer, I don’t know of any fighter that qualifies as a gamer.
He delivered a 15-minute walk through fire for Mike Brown at UFC 125, he’s one of the few guys that admits he would not duck his teammates, especially since one of his teammates, Jose “Scarface” Aldo, holds the throne, scepter, cape and crown in the UFC Featherweight division, and on top of all of that, he gets an exciting veteran in Kenny Florian on Saturday.
Florian is a skilled fighter with technical punches, a good Muay Thai game that we have not seen in a while—mind you, he has not fought since UFC 118—and some excellent jiu-jitsu that he can use in the wink of an eye, but he’s going up against a vicious Nak Muay in Nunes.
Like Florian, Nunes has a notable Muay Thai game, and he incoporates his Brazilian jiu-jitsu into his fighting style, and if he wants to beat Kenny Florian at UFC 131, he must implement his striking game early on Florian.
If he gives Florian a chance to land any of his clean punches, he will eventually find himself backpedaling and close to getting finished by Florian, and if he lets Florian take him down at will, he’ll be inviting Florian to end his win streak and his UFC stint quite early.
From the opening bell, he should be looking to hit Kenny with everything from leg kicks on the outside to elbows against the cage, wearing Florian down and gassing him out until he’s primed and ready to have his night shut down by force due to any weapon in Nunes’ arsenal.
If the fight goes into Kenny’s world, no problem for Nunes just as long as he’s patient and capitalizes on any opportunity to do damage to Florian on the ground—and Kenny does have a weakness on the ground if he’s against someone that can effectively control him and neutralize his BJJ game, which Nunes is.
Kenny Florian is no slouch, but he’ll find out the hard way that Diego Nunes was the guy Florian should’ve ducked when he dropped to featherweight, and if Florian needs a reason why he should’ve ducked Nunes, Nunes will give him a few reasons and then some this Saturday.
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