If you verbally attack Diego Sanchez, he's going to react in the same manner he does when he's being challenged in the Octagon: He's coming right at you and firing away with big bombs.
In case you needed a reminder, Sanchez was in rare form during Monday's edition of The MMA Hour.
Sanchez, coming off his match of the year candidate brawl with Gilbert Melendez at UFC 166, was asked about recent comments made by a pair of fighters, Conor McGregor and Melvin Guillard. And his reaction was as if Greg Jackon had told him he needed a knockout going into the final round of a fight.
McGregor, the controversial Irish featherweight, said in a recent interview "I don't want to be the guy leaving [Sanchez] being fed with a tube for the rest of his life. But as I said, it's easy money and money is my favorite."
"He's got the big mouth," Sanchez replied. "This all started when he put out a tweet that was disrespecting all the top 145ers in the world. And I was just, this is ridiculous. No one's going to talk back to him? You know, somebody has to put the dude in his place because he has a real mouth. The crazy thing about it is he really believes his own hype. I put out a tweet, notable victories. Who are they? Who are you notable victories? Who are your notable fights? Who are these guys who beat you? You have losses on your record and you act like you're the Muhammad Ali of Ireland. You have losses on your record. Who are they? C'mon. Why do you think you're freakin superman when you ain't done it. You gotta walk the walk before you can talk the talk. He fought two fights in UFC and he talks like he's champion? I think it's a bunch of crap."
The fighter who has been called both "The Nightmare" and "The Dream" was just getting warmed up.
"For a guy like him to disrespect me? I didn't disrespect him, I just told him how it was. .... He was talking s--- about Chad Mendes. Chad Mendes! This guy will eat you for lunch. You have not proved you can wrestle. You have not proved you are legitimate on the ground. What are you going to do when you have Diego Sanchez on top of you ground and pounding you? You have not proved that you are equivalent to that situation. It's a bunch of crap."
The TUF 1 middleweight champion also seized upon McGregor's "money" comments, saying that this demonstrated the difference between he and McGregor as fighters.
"He's all ‘I'm going to fight Diego. I like easy money. Oh, money, money, money. Money is my favorite,'" Sanchez mocked. "I'm not about the money, I'm about being a warrior and getting it in there and putting it down for my legacy, for what I was born to do. I fight. I ain't no little punk about money. I'm humble when it comes to that stuff. This dude, he's going to get humbled. If our paths cross eventually, I'm going to get him, if that's what the matchmakers in the UFC wants to do. I doubt UFC would let that even happen because there's money in this guy, he can bring the crowd to Ireland and Europe, they're not going to give him nobody like me who is going to destroy this guy. But the dude's eventually going to get his."
While the verbal dustup with McGregor is one between a pair of fighters who have never crossed paths, the words between Sanchez and Guillard are more personal. Guillard used to train at Jackson's MMA in Albuquerque, one of several places Guillard has trained during his career.
"The Young Assassin" made news last week by claiming he ‘used to drop Diego all the time" in training camp.
Sanchez highly disputes the notion, and went on to imply Guillard has a glass jaw.
"I was cool with Melvin Gullard until he said that," Sanchez said. "Maybe he was upset because whenever we fought in training camp, here's the thing with Melvin. The guy's an awesome athlete. He's really explosive, he's really fast. But the dude's got a questionable chin. I've seen everyone in the gym drop him. I've dropped him two times with a straight left. And that's the truth. The guy's got a questionable chin. Joe Stevenson dropped him with a jab. Joe Lauzon dropped him with a jab. He doesn't have an iron chin like me. For him to say he dropped me all the time, it's a bunch of bulls---. You can ask Mike Winklejohn, you can ask Greg Jackson, you can ask anyone who is in the gym, the coaches, they'll tell you, they're going to say 'I don't remember the last time I saw Diego get dropped.'
"I'll tell you who dropped me. Adlan [Amagov], he dropped me with a body shot. He hit me with a liver kick, that was the hardest I ever got kicked in my life. But yeah, I don't get dropped very much. If I did, its something like a body kick or something like that. That's part of the sport. For him to say he drops me all the time, that was the biggest untrue bulls--- I ever heard in my life."
Meanwhile, with a week and a half to reflect on it, Sanchez still believe his bout with Melendez, which Melendez won via unanimous decision, should have been ruled a draw.
"He got me with a good cut and he was doing good counterstriking," said Sanchez, who indicated a desire to meet Nate Diaz in his next fight. "But I feel like I got no points for my takedowns. He got back up, so be it, but I took him down, I took his back, I had dominant position. I was landing a lot of body kicks. I knew how tough Gilbert Melendez was. I just kept chopping at that tree, chopping at that tree, and eventually that try was going to go down. That's just how I felt. When the doctor coming over to check my cut, yeah it was a bad cut, I understand. But with my style, every second is pivotal and vital in my style. That's why I have such good conditioning and keep a high pace and get the guy tired. That's my style right there, that's what the nightmare is, when you're getting tired and you're just, that's what the hell, that guy, he keeps coming.
"Whenever they had to come check my cut they were getting little breaks," Sanchez continued. "He came in excellent shape. That affected me too, because I felt like I was chopping down that tree and I felt like I was wearing him down. He came in excellent shape. Gilbert Melendez is known for good conditioning too. But felt like I was working harder to get the W. I thought it was closer than the unanimous decision. It was a draw."
