Countdown to UFC 95: Sanchez says Joe 'Daddy' is a BJJ hack
Diego Sanchez talks a pretty good game on tonight's Countdown to UFC 95 preview. We didn't hear any of this bravado during last week's conference call. Sanchez and his camp say that Joe Stevenson hasn't improved since his win on The Ultimate Fighter 2:
"He's worked hard on his boxing but it hasn't evolved. This is MMA and if you don't evolve, you're gonna get eaten."
Sanchez then trashed Stevenson's submission defense:
"Watching the (Kenny) Florian-Joe fight, I see that Joe ain't training with guys who are better than him. Joe's supposedly a black belt, he did not even know how to do a hip escape or even try to escape from the mount. He just turned and gave his back, that's a white belt if you ask me."
"The Nightmare" doesn't reserve the trash talk for just Stevenson, he goes after lightweight contender Kenny Florian too:
"I'm watching (Florian v. Stevenson at UFC 91) and I'm seeing Kenny Florian do so good, a guy that I just totally destroyed (in the final of The Ultimate Fighter I). So I'm like I'm one of the smallest guys at 170, why not go down to 55 and see what happens, possibly get a title shot."
Greg Jackson also gets smashed during the show. Jackson and Sanchez parted ways in 2007 when it was clear that Georges St. Pierre was going to join the camp. Sanchez's mother actually says bringing GSP into Jackson's Submission Fighting was a betrayal.
It's worth noting that the UFC chose to give extensive to hype the Nate Marquardt-Wilson Gouveia fight during Countdown to UFC 95. Some think that the Chael Sonnen-Demian Maia winner actually deserves a title shot before Marquardt or Gouveia.
