Nathan Diaz, Charles Oliveira, and Expiry Dates on Victories
One has four wins in eight years, the other has five victories in the last 24 months, but it's the latter that apparently needs the former and something about that just doesn't feel right
What’s the statute of limitations on how long someone can be propped up by an individual victory?
What I mean is, at what point does the juice from that particular win wear off and simply become another victory on that fighter’s resume and not some crowning achievement that gets them into a title conversation where they otherwise don’t belong?
These are the kinds of things I think about at night… and during the day… and whenever a whole mess of people start talking about how Nathan Diaz should fight Charles Oliveira next at 170 pounds simply because the former Ultimate Fighter winner and fan favorite suggested the streaking Brazilian lightweight contender is someone he’s interested in fighting next.
I was thinking about this topic before Ariel Helwani dropped his one-on-one with Diaz this morning and the Stockton, California native became today’s favorite talking point, but he also makes a good case study for this exercise.
Next month brings the five-year anniversary of Diaz’s surprising victory over Conor McGregor at UFC 196, a win that transformed the cult hero into a certified star.
I was there, it was an incredible moment, and Diaz got the big payday and the superstar treatment he merited with that victory in the months leading up to the rematch, and has never really relinquished that position since, even though he’s fought just twice since the summer of 2016 and got picked apart by Jorge Masvidal in his last appearance well over a year ago.
Part of what made that early March evening in 2016 so special was that up until that point, Diaz was — how should I say this? — kind of overrated, at least in terms of popularity as measured against his actual accomplishments inside the Octagon.
He’d had some good wins and stretches where things really came together for him, but he was 13-8 inside the Octagon overall and 8-8 since beginning his UFC tenure with five straight victories.
The reason his win over Michael Johnson that kicked off this whole adventure and gave him a chance to cut his memorable “You’re taking everything I’ve worked for” promo on FOX was such a “Holy Shit!” moment was that he looked disinterested in his previous fight against Rafael Dos Anjos, missing weight and getting beaten handily. He was 1-3 in his last four heading into that bout and coming off a one-year absence, which followed another one-year absence, and Johnson was in the midst of the best run of his career.
But nearly five years later, his triumph over McGregor and subsequent ascension to star status now seems to work as a pass that allows Diaz to be inserted into any big fight conversation that comes up in the UFC and makes a lot of people believe that a guy like Oliveira should jump at the opportunity to share the Octagon with him, even if it means competing in a different weight class and risking his place in the lightweight pecking order.
He’s always going to be a star in the same way that people are always going to revere various former champions, but at some point, those previous accolades simply become a point on a fighter’s list of accomplishments and not a thing that earns them greater opportunities when the body of work doesn’t necessarily merit such consideration.
Part of what got me thinking about his initially was the overwhelming number of “Imagine how good Aljamain Sterling is!” reactions to Cory Sandhagen’s 28-second knockout win over Frankie Edgar on Saturday; Sterling submitted Sandhagen in 88 seconds this summer to earn a bantamweight title shot.
I laughed every time I saw it for two reasons:
1) If you didn’t know Sterling was really goddamn good before he beat Sandhagen, you weren’t paying close enough attention, and
2) You can get to some really weird “Imagine how good (insert fighters name here) is!” places by going back through Tapology pages based on who beat whom and when because MMA math is an inexact science… and not a science… and not a thing at all.
You can also create a loop back to Sterling in only eight steps by using the last person to beat him (Marlon Moraes) and continuing that pattern forward:
Sterling >> Marlon Moraes >> Rob Font >> Raphael Assuncao >> Cody Garbrandt >> Pedro Munhoz >> Frankie Edgar >> Sandhagen >> Sterling
Don’t get me wrong, I think the world of “Aljo” and am happy to see him get his title shot and the recognition he deserves as an elite bantamweight, it’s just that the instant “flip this into something about someone that beat that guy” reaction got me thinking about how we value different victories for a prolonged period of time in this sport, not that his victory over Sandhagen happened all that long ago.
The better example is the one that came up when I posed the opening question of this piece to Twitter on Monday night: Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier, who have now met twice and each earned a win, though only one of those victories still feels like it has any real juice.
Here’s the sequence:
McGregor’s UFC 178 victory over Poirier was a crucial victory at the time and remains a strong name for him to have on his resume, however in terms of the influence that particular win should hold on future matchmaking, I’m not even sure I like the fact that it’s going to be used to justify a third meeting between the two later this year, likely with the lightweight title on the line.
Note: I’m not reporting anything because, well, I’m not a reporter, but if you’re not prepared for the UFC to go that route, you really haven’t been paying attention.
Conversely, Poirier’s recent victory at UFC 257 still carries a ton of weight because it just happened and had an impact on the division and how things will be aligned in the coming months.
Now, imagine how crazy it would have been if someone came off the top rope with a “Imagine how good Michael Johnson is!” following Poirier’s win over McGregor given that “The Menace” is the only person other than Khabib Nurmagomedov to beat the Louisiana native since he returned to lightweight following his loss to McGregor.
No one is running around hustling Johnson into big fights on the strength of that victory, even though it came six months after Diaz beat McGregor, and yet here we are, still holding up Diaz as someone that should be inserted right back into every marquee fight possible even though he’s 1-2 in his last three fives and has only competed three times three times in five years.
Stars are treated differently, obviously, and Diaz is a star.
But shouldn’t there come a point where we stop just giving stars opportunities simply because of who they are, especially when there are others that have actually put in the work and earned the results?
Oliveira is a perfect example here, and that’s why the notion of him moving up to fight Diaz being something he absolutely should do made no sense to me this morning:
Here’s a guy on an eight-fight winning streak in what everyone agrees is one of the deepest, most competitive divisions in the sport. He’s less than three months removed from dominating Tony Ferguson, finished seven straight opponents prior to that decision win, and is 9-1 since finally returning to lightweight.
Rather than making him the B-Side in a fight outside of his weight class with zero meaningful stakes against a guy who has one win in five years, why not, I don’t know, commit more effort and energy to showcasing and rewarding Oliveira for what he’s done inside the Octagon over the last four years?
I know the UFC is almost always going to move in the direction of making the fights that sell the most and as a business, it makes complete sense, but it also is the kind of thing that keeps us in this same loop where people are always frustrated at the lack of stars and the UFC’s “inability” to create new stars, and then advocating for established stars that have fought three times over the last half a decade to serve as the A-Side in a matchup with someone who has more victories in the last two years than his prospective opponent has in the last eight.
So I ask once more: at what point do we stop holding Diaz and others up based on what they did in the past and start giving those same opportunities to athletes like Oliveira that are accomplishing things in the present?
Part of the reason I don’t like the idea of Oliveira going up to face Diaz is that impression about these individual athletes shift quickly and what you think should be a star-making turn quickly becomes a case of “yeah, but that guy was already in decline” or some other argument used to minimize the impact of said effort.
It’s already happening with his win over Ferguson, who was still very much in everyone’s personal Top 5 at lightweight before the step into the Octagon on December 12, but quickly became “over the hill” once the Brazilian manhandled him to move his winning streak to eight.
I can see it now: Oliveira accepts the fight, moves up to welterweight, and out-hustles Diaz in a competitive fight where there is zero controversy and even the Diaz Army accepts and acknowledges defeat.
What many see today as the big victory “Do Bronx” needs to increase his profile and bolster his brand instantly becomes a referendum on where Diaz is at in his career, how little he’s fought in the last several years, how things would have gone differently against a more active version of Diaz, and how the victory doesn’t really mean anything in the lightweight title picture because the fight happened at welterweight.
Also (clears throat) lots of dudes beat Nathan Diaz and very few of them garnered some kind of big boost in popularity or marketability after their wins.
People didn’t suddenly like Benson Henderson more or turn his bouts into major appointment viewing after he toppled Diaz in December 2012 and “Smooth” was the reigning lightweight champion at the time.
Now you want to tell me that beating a 35-year-old Diaz coming off an extended hiatus and already 18 months removed from his last victory is going to elevate Oliveira to previously unreached levels of stardom, fame, and acceptance?
Let’s be clear: there is no right answer here, and the UFC is going to do whatever it chooses to do, which will likely be to book Diaz in a marquee fight; it’s inevitable, like Thanos.
There are, in my opinions, things media members and observers can do in terms of how long we give value to individual victories, and how we speak about these athletes so that guys like Oliveira aren’t constantly viewed as still needing that one big victory that elevates them to a point where they can actually get the kinds of opportunities their efforts merit.
Diaz has some quality wins on his resume and had some big moments inside the Octagon, but the last big victory came five years ago; sorry Anthony Pettis. He’s a star, but even stars should need to be active and successful in order to be thrust into marquee matchups and championship opportunities, and the more people with prominent voices speak about these kinds of things and voice these opinions, the more the masses begin to follow suit.
Conversely, there shouldn’t be this “fame threshold” athletes need to break before we start talking about them as legitimate title challengers and dangerous threats in their respective divisions, as fame doesn’t have anything to do with what they’ve accomplished inside the Octagon.
Yes, the more marketable and well-known a fighter is will certainly be factored into booking decisions and contributes to how well a pay-per-view sells or a televised event does in the ratings, but as observers of this sport, why do we care more about how well a pay-per-view is going to sell than seeing the men and women that have worked to reach the pinnacle of the sport get a shot, regardless of whether or not it would appeal to @JohnnyUFC87?
And let’s be honest: it probably won’t appeal to him and he’s probably going to illegally stream the pay-per-view anyway, so why are we always trying to justify these matchups to that guy in the first place?
Too often, we do this thing where we say what should happen, and then follow it up with the justification for doing something different and demanding more of the fighter getting the raw deal.
For example: Charles Oliveira should be fighting for the UFC lightweight title next, but he’s not a big enough star, so I understand why the UFC would move in a different direction, and furthermore, I think Oliveira should take a fight against Nathan Diaz.
From there, we focus exclusively on the something different and the additional demands, and not enough on hammering home the initial piece, that Oliveira has done more than enough to merit a lightweight title shot and shouldn’t have to go searching for a ninth straight win outside of his division against a guy like Diaz in order to get what he’s earned just because @JohnnyUFC87 needs to see him share the cage with someone like Diaz before he could possibly be interested in watching him fight for the title.
And even then there are no guarantees.
We have to start putting increased value and weight on recent events and not historic victories, and talking about fresh, exciting, new contenders as they start working their way up the divisional ladder, not only once they’re paired off with a marquee name.
We need to do a better job of telling people why they need to pay attention to Charles Oliveira when he’s three, four, five fights into his winning streak and not only when it finally reaches eight and he beats a guy like Ferguson.
And we need to stop constantly hustling to give guys like Diaz every marquee assignment he expresses interest in because of a victory he earned five years ago and his tenured star status.
We always talk about how “you’re only as good as your last win” and this is a “what have you done for me lately?” sport — maybe we should hold everyone to that standard and not always give the biggest names a pass.