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With 30 UFC fights to his name, Diego ‘The Nightmare’ Sanchez is one of the most long-tenured fighters in the history of the world’s biggest MMA promotion, but to anyone who has followed the native of Albuquerque, New Mexico over the past 15 years, his lengthy time with the UFC shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Sanchez is simply one of the most exciting and entertaining fighters in the young history of the sport, and the fact that he’s the only athlete in UFC history with three ‘Fight of the Year’ awards from the respected Wrestling Observer Newsletter backs that up. But ‘The Nightmare’ has had more than just 3 great fights – in fact, he’s had more great fights in the Octagon than perhaps any other fighter.
Here are Diego Sanchez’s 5 greatest ever fights.
#5 Martin Kampmann – UFC on Versus 3 – March 3rd, 2011
Following his failed UFC Lightweight title shot in 2009, Sanchez moved back to 170lbs at the beginning of 2010 and after getting back on track with a win over Paulo Thiago at UFC 121, he was matched against dangerous striker Martin ‘Hitman’ Kampmann in the main event of the UFC’s third show on the Versus network.
Sanchez seemed even more eccentric than ever before prior to the fight, changing his nickname from ‘The Nightmare’ to ‘The Dream’ and then entering the arena to the sounds of Los Lobos’ La Bamba, hardly a song worthy of an intimidating fighter. But when he entered the Octagon in Louisville, Kentucky, Sanchez fought like a man possessed.
The first round could hardly have gone much worse for Diego, who was picked apart by his Danish foe’s sharper, more accurate striking, and ‘The Dream’ even went down following an early straight right hand. But rather than change up his gameplan in the second round, Sanchez simply bit down on his mouthpiece and came out swinging for the fences, willing to take three punches to land a harder one.
To everyone’s surprise, the plan worked; Kampmann’s punches continued to make a bloody mess of Sanchez’s face, but ‘The Dream’ just kept on coming forward and his wild flurries made an impact, wobbling Kampmann on numerous occasions and leaving him covering up along the fence. It made for a brawl for the ages.
The third round followed the same pattern – with an incredible amount of action on view – and despite Sanchez looking like he’d been assaulted by a machete, he was awarded a unanimous decision by the judges. The result was controversial, with many fans feeling ‘Hitman’ had done enough to deserve the nod, but one thing that couldn’t be questioned was Sanchez’s heart and toughness – and his penchant for putting on classic fights inside the Octagon.
#4 Nick Diaz – Ultimate Fighter 2 Finale – November 5th, 2005
When the first batch of Ultimate Fighter graduates made their way onto the UFC roster in 2005, some of the promotion’s more tenured fighters were unsure what to make of them – feeling they’d taken a shortcut to stardom. One of those tenured fighters was a young Nick Diaz, who had 5 Octagon appearances under his belt and felt that Sanchez – the original TUF winner – was stealing his spotlight.
After some back-and-forth trash talk, a fight between the two was signed, and during the build to it, the bad blood threatened to boil over on numerous occasions – with Diaz even launching a shoe at his opponent backstage prior to the bout. With the two fighters finally caged, the fans were treated to an all-time great staredown between the two, and then the action began.
Over the course of 15 minutes, Sanchez and Diaz put on an absolute clinic; although both men, Diaz in particular, would become known for their penchant for striking in their later careers, this was almost purely a grappling match, with some incredible scrambles, positional exchanges and submission attempts throughout.
The difference, in the end, was Sanchez’s ability to achieve top position and keep Diaz grounded, where he could unleash his then-famed ground-and-pound, just as he’d promised during the pre-fight promos. In the end, despite suffering a deep cut over his eye, ‘The Nightmare’ was awarded the biggest win of his career at the time – with Diaz being fed a large slice of humble pie.
Neither man could be considered a loser coming out of such a high-quality fight, though; the war between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar was understandably crowned the Fight of the Year for 2005, but 15 years later there’s definitely an argument to be made that this clash is superior in hindsight.
#3 Clay Guida – Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale – June 20th, 2009
When Sanchez dropped to 155lbs in early 2009, he made it well known that his ultimate goal was to unseat BJ Penn for the UFC Lightweight title. After defeating Joe Stevenson in his divisional debut, ‘The Nightmare’ was given a chance to secure his title shot in his next fight – all he needed to do was defeat the ultra-tough Clay ‘The Carpenter’ Guida, who was himself on a long winning streak and was looking for a title shot of his own.
Both men came into the fight with an unbelievable level of intensity; Guida entered first and by the time Diego walked into the arena, the two fighters were snarling at each other before their introductions had been made. Despite that though, nobody was quite prepared for the insanity that would follow when the fight began.
Diego came hurtling out of his corner and began to throw bombs at Guida, who obliged and fired right back, the two men brawling wildly as the Las Vegas crowd roared in shock and awe at what they were seeing. It was clear that Sanchez was coming out on top of the exchanges, and moments after the referee gave Guida some respite in order to replace his mouthpiece, ‘The Nightmare’ hit him with a head kick that seemed to knock him out on impact.
Somehow though, Guida rose from the dead and continued to fight, and from there the action continued, with the fight somehow going the distance. Things did slow down slightly in the second and third rounds, with the brawling sequences separated by takedowns from ‘The Carpenter’ that Sanchez responded against by elbowing him repeatedly in the head, opening up numerous cuts.
‘The Nightmare’ was eventually awarded a win by split decision – although quite how one judge scored the fight for Guida remains a mystery. Either way, the crowd had been treated to an absolute classic, and over a decade later, no UFC fight has started in quite the same way as this one did. 2019 saw the fight inducted into the UFC’s Hall of Fame – a worthy award if there ever was one.
#2 Karo Parisyan – UFC Fight Night 6 – August 17th, 2006
If Sanchez’s classic fight with Nick Diaz was all about his grappling, and his brawl with Martin Kampmann almost completely a striking match, then this 2006 war with Karo Parisyan – winner of numerous Fight of the Year awards – simply had it all. At the time, both men were gunning for a shot at the UFC Welterweight title – but of course, only one could come out on top.
After 15 minutes of pure action, it turned out that ‘the one’ was ‘The Nightmare’. He came flying out of the blocks in the first round, stunning Parisyan with a hard uppercut that opened a gash under his eye before taking him down to deliver punishment from a back mount. For a moment it looked like the fight was over – but ‘The Heat’ was able to survive, and even hit an amazing judo throw on Sanchez later in the round.
The action continued in the second round, with both men going back-and-forth in both striking and grappling exchanges; Parisyan managed a slam takedown at one point only for Sanchez to reverse the Armenian judoka and take a dominant position of his own. Essentially, it was getting hard to decide exactly who was on top in the fight.
The third round, though, left no doubt. Parisyan came out strongly, but after being reversed a couple of times again, it suddenly became clear that the pace that Sanchez was willing to push was becoming too much for ‘The Heat’. Diego eventually landed a huge knee that visibly sent one of Parisyan’s teeth flying, and from there, he ended the fight by punishing him with punches and elbows from inside the guard – looking just as fresh as he’d done at the beginning of the fight.
Even by Sanchez’s standards this remains a phenomenal fight over a decade later, and stands as a testament of how brilliant he was in his early years in the UFC. Parisyan was his toughest test to that point – and ‘The Nightmare’ passed it with flying colors while entertaining the fans like no other, too.
#1 Gilbert Melendez – UFC 166 – October 19th, 2013
By 2013, Sanchez had seen his fair share of both wins and losses inside the UFC, and his reputation was more that of an eccentric, exciting veteran gatekeeper than a genuine title contender. So when the UFC matched him with top Lightweight contender Gilbert Melendez at UFC 166 – with a potential title shot on the line – it felt like ‘The Nightmare’ was probably doomed.
In the end though, the fans who tuned into the event learned a valuable lesson – you can never count Diego Sanchez out of any fight, even when he seems painfully outgunned.
The first round began with Sanchez charging out aggressively, surprising Melendez with a takedown before taking his back. ‘El Nino’ was able to shake Diego off, however, and within minutes, the fight resembled the Kampmann one for ‘The Nightmare’, with Sanchez coming up largely short on his punches while eating sharper, cleaner ones from the former StrikeForce champion.
Against Kampmann, Diego’s gameplan had been to draw his opponent into a brawl – and unsurprisingly, the same idea reared its head here. By the end of the first round, ‘The Nightmare’ seemed content to take a punch to give one back, and surprisingly, it seemed like Melendez was more than happy to meet him on those terms.
From there the fans in attendance were treated to some of the wildest exchanges in UFC history, as the two Latino fighters simply stood at the phone-booth range and exchanged bombs, both men landing but neither one being willing to back down an inch.
By the third round, it was clear that Diego was losing the fight – he was sporting a huge cut over his left eye, with blood pouring down his face – but he’d certainly won over the fans, who were now firmly behind him. And when he landed an uppercut during one of his wild flurries and ‘El Nino’ went down, it appeared like we were about to see an all-time huge upset. But it wasn’t to be, and instead, Melendez recovered to continue to trade bombs until the fight finally ended.
The judges scored the fight unanimously for Melendez, but in all honesty, for Sanchez that didn’t matter at all. It was ‘The Nightmare’ who came away from the fight with more publicity and his profile somehow raised back up despite the loss, and while ‘El Nino’ was indeed granted a title shot, there was no question as to who was the more popular with the fans.
At the end of 2013, it was no surprise that this fight was the unanimous choice for ‘Fight of the Year’ – 7 years later it remains a stone-cold classic and is still arguably one of the greatest fights in UFC history.
