Diego Sanchez's 5 greatest UFC fights

#3 Clay Guida – Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale – June 20th, 2009

Sanchez's brawl with Clay Guida was inducted into the UFC's Hall of Fame

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.