Nick Diaz stops Paul Daley in thrilling one-round fight to retain Strikeforce Welterweight Championship

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

A war was promised, and a war was delivered on Saturday night in San Diego, as Strikeforce Welterweight Champion Nick Diaz retained his title in a thrilling one round bout with Paul Daley on Showtime.

Diaz began the fight in typical Diaz fashion, dropping his hands, sticking his chin out and taunting Daley to engage. That's exactly what happened, and Daley struck with the first of a few back and forth barrages early in the fight, getting Diaz down with strikes against the cage and landing some strikes on the ground.

But Diaz was able to recover, and then he went to work as well. His normally flustering style of boxing has gotten even more dangerous, as he's added power to his technical prowess, and he lit Daley up on the cage with vicious body shots and pinpoint accurate shots to the head. Daley was still in the fight, but Diaz was connecting on nice shots while eating some of the counter-punches wildly thrown by Daley.

However, Daley nearly ended Diaz's night with a left hook that flattened the Champion with a couple of minutes remaining. Though he claimed after the fight he hadn't been hurt, things were certainly shaky for him at that point. Daley pounced and attempted to finish him off, but Diaz got his bearings and got back to his feet.

He remained unafraid of Daley's attack, and came straight back at the challenger, lighting him up again with combinations on the cage. Finally, after a vicious combination of body shots and a hook to the jaw, Daley walked forward and tried to push Diaz away. As he did, he stumbled and fell to his back as he was out of sorts. Diaz pounced as time was running out in the round, and delivered a few blows on the ground before referee "Big" John McCarthy stopped the fight with only seconds remaining.

The stoppage has brought an outcry from some fans who felt it was an early stoppage, but though Daley may have been able to survive the end of the round, much like Carlos Condit's third round stoppage of Rory MacDonald last year, or Cris "Cyborg" Santos' late first round stoppage of Gina Carano, the beating was being put on and Daley did go to the ground in suspicious fashion to begin with.

Regardless, Diaz retained the title, and now all involved will look to the future with Strikeforce now under the Zuffa umbrella. But for at least one more night for Strikeforce in his home state of California, Diaz gave the fans another thrilling MMA fight and an incredible performance.

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/Affliction2/article_9021.shtml

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