John McCarthy doesn’t think UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman would want to stand with Nick Diaz for too long if they fought.
In a recent interview with TMZ, Diaz (26-10 MMA, 7-7 UFC) stated that he’s targeting an end-of-year return and that he’d like to challenge Usman (20-1 MMA, 15-0 UFC) for the title.
Diaz didn’t look to be in his best form when he returned from a six-and-a-half-year layoff against Robbie Lawler last September at UFC 266. The fight took place at middleweight, and Diaz was stopped in Round 3, but McCarthy thinks Diaz would be a handful for Usman standing.
“If there’s one thing that you know about Nick, he’s gonna come and give you everything that he’s got,” McCarthy said on his “Weighing In” podcast. “Would I mind seeing him against Kamaru? No, I wouldn’t, other than this: Kamaru would stand with him until he started getting lit up and then he’s gonna go and use his wrestling – which he should. I’m not saying he shouldn’t, but what is Nick always complaining about? People wrestling.
And then it’s on the ground, and it’s gonna end up being yeah, he can try and use his submission game and stuff, but I don’t think that Kamaru would end up standing up with Nick that long, that much out of the first round. Things would start to become difficult.”
McCarthy went on to explain that Diaz, the former WEC and Strikeforce champion, would use his volume to overwhelm Usman, whom he sees naturally resorting to his decorated wrestling background.
“He’s a handful as far as the way he creates situations that he just touch, touch, touch, and he’ll throw power in there, and he’ll take shots to give shots, and he just keeps this buzzsaw action going that makes you start to become more defensive than offensive,” McCarthy said. “And you end up saying screw this and when you’ve got that wrestling background, you’re Kamaru Usman, you go, ‘I’m taking him down,’ and that’s what I see here.”
