TUF 1 Champ Diego Sanchez Will Be a Gatekeeper at 170 Pounds, Just Like He Would Be at 155 Pounds

After getting thoroughly destroyed in his fight against Fighters.com and UFC lightweight champion “The Prodigy” BJ Penn (15-5-1), tenth-ranked lightweight “Nightmare” Diego Sanchez (21-3) has made the decision to move back to welterweight. One can only assume he has come to the conclusion that staying at lightweight will only lead to him being the gatekeeper to title shots against BJ since he obviously had nothing to offer BJ in the one-sided drubbing. Unfortunately the move to back to welterweight does not look any brighter for Diego and he will find himself in the position of the proverbial stepping stone.

Diego won The Ultimate Fighter season one at welterweight and came into the UFC with guns blazing. He won five in a row before taking the fight against Fighters.com seventh-ranked welterweight Josh Koscheck (14-4). There was no love lost between these two and the war of words was spanned from interviews to social media sites like Myspace. Diego stepped inside the Octagon undefeated and was seen by some as a very real threat to the title. However he left that night with his first loss and had to regroup. He lost his next fight as well. This time to third-ranked Jon Fitch (20-3).

Both Fitch and Kos are still near the top of the division and looking to get a shot at Fighters.com and UFC welterweight champion “Rush” Georges St. Pierre (19-2). So what makes Diego think this time will be any different?

During Diego’s fight with Penn many finally realized that his striking is not as good as it had been touted. His punches, which usually come in bunches, were slow. He was unable to unload the barrage of strikes we typically see from him due to the fact that Penn was faster and countering well. Sanchez could not find a rhythm in the fight and we witnessed first hand his lack of a solid defense while on his feet. Penn seemed to hit him when he wanted and as often as he wanted during the fight. I can only imagine how hard it must have been for fans of “The Nightmare” to watch him unable to do anything. Not only were his punches not landing but his head movement was predictable. All in all his stand up, as I have been saying, is just not up there with the top strikers in the UFC and there are some KO artists in the welterweight division.

Diego finding himself unable to hit BJ and getting dropped in the first round tried for take-downs. Many have found out just how good Penn’s take-down defense is and Diego was no different. Instead of getting BJ down he ate punches for his effort. This coming from such a solid wrestler who people thought had a shot to to get BJ down in the later rounds due to his cardio.

The cardio that Sanchez was known for seemed to fade from him after getting dropped by BJ in the first round. Then everyone could see just how predictable Diego is when he fights. How will this change with a move back up to welterweight? His cardio might be better due to not having to cut weight which could make him a bit more explosive. However we saw him fail in his fights against top contenders already. Let’s say for arguments sake that he happened to beat guys like Fitch and Koscheck and gets a shot at GSP. Does anyone believe that, including Diego,that the fight would go better for him than the Penn fight did?

GSP has clean, precise punches that in conjunction with with his kicks keep opponents at a distance. They stay there until he is ready to put them on their back with his high caliber wrestling. GSP has already beaten both Kos and Fitch, who as we know, beat Sanchez. I know MMA math is not something that works very well but knowing the stregths of GSP and seeing the major holes in Diego’s game can only lead to one conclusion. Diego would get yet another beat down by another champion.

I will admit that with the talent that we see coming into the welterweight division there are some fights for Diego that would be easy to market for the UFC. Once fifth-ranked “The Outlaw” Dan Hardy (23-6) loses to GSP, we could see him fight Diego. The pre-fight smack talk from Hardy alone would cause Diego to go crazy and would bring in the casual fans in droves, even though I dislike those antics. Not to mention another fight with his enemy Koscheck or the hard hitting “Semtex” Paul Daley (20-9-2). All of these would be worthy of a pay per view main card.

If Diego thinks the road to the title in the welterweight division is an easy one he is sorely mistaken. Maybe he thinks he would have a better shot at GSP than he did with Penn. Again, that would be a critical error in his thinking if that is the case.

The only logical conclusion that I see at this time is for Diego to be used as a gatekeeper to the divisions elite. He would fight the men that were a fight or two away from the title shot and never really progress. Diego has finally opened the eyes of many of you and we can now see he is not the elite fighter he was once touted as being. He shall remain a fighter that you either love or hate and therefore be able to be used by the UFC but only as other fighters step over him on the road to gold.

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