Strikeforce preview: K.J Noons vs Nick Diaz
Strikeforce’s Saturday mixed martial arts card is one of the best they’ve put on recently, and it’s mostly because of one reason: the headlining bout between current welterweight (170lb) champion Nick
Diaz and challenger K.J Noons. The fight is a rematch of a fight that happened almost three years ago, on 10 November 2007 for the EliteXC promotion.
Then, Noons despatched Diaz quickly despite coming in as a significant underdog. It only lasted a round, with Noons punishing Diaz on the feet with his boxing. When Diaz shot in for a lazy takedown to
take it to the ground, Noons made him pay by landing a knee to the face. That opened up a bad cut over Diaz’s eye, which caused the fight to be stopped after the first round.
That fight took place at the special 160lb lightweight limit of EliteXC (most organisations, including Strikeforce, have a 155lb lightweight limit). Diaz soon moved up to welterweight afterwards, and Noons
will be fighting at welterweight for the first time for this fight.
Recent form
Part of the reason this fight is so exciting is because of the way both men have fought since their earlier encounter. After the setback, Diaz (22-7) has come back very strong, winning seven straight fights
over some very good competition, like Scott Smith, Frank Shamrock and DREAM promotion welterweight champion Marius “White Mare” Zaromskis. Not one of them has made it to the final bell.
Noons (9-1) has also gone undefeated since then, picking up four straight wins bookended by victories over Ultimate Fighting Championships veterans Yves Edwards and Jorge Gurgel. He knocked out Gurgel
in the second round.
Style breakdown, odds and prediction
The reason this fight looks to be so exciting is because of the style both these men employ. Diaz is a very competent boxer, and employs the “punches in bunches” strategy to beat his opponents. Instead
of seeking the one-punch knock-out, he uses a very high volume of accurate strikes to slowly break down his opponent’s defence, until he can unload with some very good power shots.
His deficiency is his wrestling (his shoddy takedown attempt on Noons in the first fight let him to eat that massive knee), but if his opponent takes him down, he has a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under
the very respected Cesar Gracie.
Diaz’s string of wins has largely been based off of exploiting the lack of technical boxing skills of his opponents. That won’t be easy with Noons, who has a professional boxing record of 11-2 to this
resume. Noons throws more power, ducking and weaving in his opponent’s range until he can unload to the body or throw a knock-out blow. His ground game isn’t nearly as good as Diaz’s, but he’s competent at defending the take-down and can try to keep the fight
on the feet. Based on Diaz’s impressive run of seven wins over tougher competition, he’s coming into the fight as a 2/5 favourite, while Noons is an underdog at 2/1 on the bookmakers cards.
Noons is the better pick. He can hang with Diaz on the feet, and it’s quite possible this fight could play out like the last one. This fight really should be a toss-up, but with the odds looking Noons’s
way, he provides very good value.
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