McGregor VS Diaz Fight Card Gambling Picks

Tonight: Bellator features Darrion Caldwell vs Joe warren in what Joe Warren basically did which was jump quickly into the deeper end of the MMA pool after a stellar wrestling career. Interesting to see if Old Man Warren can do what he's done to others.

The real show topic of importance: 

Nate Diaz is 3-3, in his last 6 fights. He has losses to RDA, a stoppage loss to Josh Thompson and Decision loss to Benson Henderson. Those aren't super telling in that Henderson was champion, RDA now has the strap, and the Thompson fight was a firefight.

Diaz has wins over Gray Maynard by Stoppage, Gillotine over Jim Miller,  and a pretty lopsided Decision over Donald Cerrone: both those fights nearly 3 years ago. For me, to handicap this fight, the most telling was his recent Win over Michael Johnson. Johnson had the right gameplan to start the fight in the first round but fatigued inexplicably and Diaz eventually walked him down and edged out the 2nd round and clearly won the 3rd round.

The speed of Johnson gave Diaz problems, Diaz has always had problems with consistent leg kicks, lacks the counter or even offensive wrestling to stymie guys coming forward and wins fights one of two ways: walking the guy down who wilts under his pressure, in a scramble from a clinch/tie-up gets it to the mat where he efficiently does work and can finish guys quickly off his back or otherwise. Against McGregor, none of those gameplans will work. McGregor will go to the body early and often with some push kicks that fast, sneaky spinning back heel kick he lans as guys circle out against him/a southpaw.
I bet and will move in and out and do to Diaz what he likes to do to others which is stalk and control the range.

Holm vs Tate - Holm by patient, dissection of the rushing forward Miesha who lacks the footwork and head movement to not get picked apart. This one by slow death, ends in the 3rd round.

Tom Lawlor - won last two by KO and submission, lost a split Decision to Carmont, beat Jason Macdonald, loss by sub to former champ Weismann on his title run up 

- D win over Maldonado whatver that means, win over some guy who's name I can't pronounce, Los to villante, 

Erick Silva vs some dude - 2-2, loss to Neil magny, submitted Koscheck and mike Rhodes, loss via stoppage to Matt brown - never won more than 2 in a row in the UFC. Dude's best showing was a win on a TUF finale. I'll just leave that there. 

Nunes vs I don't watch women fight so I'll keep this moving right along.

Thatch is back after losing to Bahadurzada. I think Thatch wins this one but wouldn't bet cash on it straight up. 

Jim Miller on FightPass vs Diego Sanchez 

Jim Miller is in the "should have campaigned for a title shot back when he had an obscene amount of wins in a row. Now he's fighting on FightPass on the biggest card of the year thus far.

Now he's coming off a submission loss to Chiesa, and a split Decision win over Castillo, and a loss to Dariush by D and a KO loss to Cerrone: all since middle of 2014.
I think Miller wins this one by decision as Sanchez is notoriously hard to finish despite the mileage on his tires. 

Sanchez - coming off a D loss to Ricardo Lamas,  a split D win over Ross Pearson, loss to Myles Jury, a loss to Melendez, and a split D win over Gomi going back to 2013

People will always complain: McGregor Moves to Welterweight

I could go on and on and on and on and on about this: McGregor takes fight with Nate Diaz. The ink isn't even dry on the press release and it's "why didn't he fight Cerrone?" "Why didn't he fight so-and-so?" If you think the UFC really airs out how it does business you haven't been following their company practices much as a fan. They don't actually admit to how much fighters are paid outside of listed win/show/whatever money. The negotiating of fights and contracts is still very very very hush hush. You think they tell the general public how things are actually done?

Bisping has done his fair share of crying/complaining after his losses.....

I do think it's hilarious Aldo demands a rematch and says "anytime, anywhere" and then is offered the fight and says no. Talk about primadonna behavior. He's got the Anderson Silva syndrome back when Anderson would balk at virtually everyone the UFC offered him. Anderson was quite the primadonna which people forget because of the Weidman losses and the year long suspension for banned substances putting him in victim-card-playing-territory to some as of late.  Bisping chimes in as he is oft willing to do by calling McGregor lucky that guys keep getting hurt and he fights guys late notice. Option B is McGregor doesn't fight, and pulls a Werdum/Cain rematch that just happened and an event moves to *&^# ing free TV which I'm sure the UFC was highly displeased with to put it mildly.

Conor doesn't fight Nate Diaz so he defies logic double and takes a fight at 170. The crickets sure are chirping.

McGregor SKIPS a weightclass and takes a fight with not just some dude you've never heard of, but a guy who's got legitimate wins in the promotion, a ton of experience and stylistically is a striker as would be the case if McGregor fought Pettis or Cerrone, the other two most notable names tossed in the ring.

WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?

Now people say oh Nate is last minute. Oh he's not a wrestler. Nate is blah blah blah blase. 

Cerrone and Pettis both stepped up but if they fought Conor people would say they're both strikers and not wrestlers which is the untested part of Conor's game. And they just fought recently. So if/when Conor beat them people would blame that. 

It's hilarious to watch naysayers do what naysayers do no matter the topic. The justification machine is on full-throttle for Conor McGregor and the spectacle of the rationalization hamster wheel must be melting the metal or the plastic of whatever it's made of currently. 

Typical McGregor hater busy on his facebook newsfeed commenting away