I thought it was more like Joe said.

Hathaway is a new generation of fighters with good striking and grappling. Where as Diego only has the grappling going for him and his striking is left way behind.

So no matter where he goes, if he meets a BJ Penn type fighter, he’s gonna be in trouble.

Amen. Never ever fight at 170 again, Diego.

Diego was chubby at weigh ins and nearly tripped during a YUS cartwheel.

Losing was his destiny. BJ kicked the next few Ws out of him.

Sanchez’s energy looked a little down in the fight. It was almost UFC 69ish the way he was going aboot it.

Overall though his skillset kinda leaves him in trouble no matter whether he’s at lightweight or welterweight. His wrestling just isn’t good enough and in the wrestling shark tanks that are those divisions he’s kinda screwed.

Diego had some good momentum going after his two losses to Kos and Fitch. He was bulking up and looking better than ever.

Then out of the blue he decides to drop to LW where his frantic style made him one of the pack instead of setting him apart and got nuked by BJ.

Now he’s back up at WW, where he is effectively now a blown up LW.

Lesson: don’t go bouncing around weight classes.

This was a weird fight for Diego. I didn’t notice much discussion about it before the fight but he moved back to New Mexico and joined some random camp for this fight. I believe he was training with Albuquerque Kickboxing and MMA but I’m not positive. It’s weird that he would move back to Albuquerque but not feel welcome to re-join his old camp.

I’d be willing to bet he’ll go back to Greg Jackson after this loss. I’d like to see him start training with Team Jackson and fight once or twice more at welterweight before deciding he needs to cut back down to 155.

Diego is one of those fighters where he’s not big for WW and there are a ton of guys who fight at WW who cut from 190+ so he’ll always give up size, but too big for the cut to 155 where he loses his speed/explosiveness/strength. He looked slow and out of shape, at least compared to old 170 Diego who constantly pressed the action. Like he didn’t put the weight back on properly.

He needs to return to Jackson as he hasn’t been the same fighter since leaving. When he joined the Riberios at University of Jiu Jitsu that’s all he did in his fights and he never really worked his stand up. He needs a complete team. He’s not elite but he can be a solid gate keeper between the A&B level fighters in either division.

I believe White is speaking more as a promoter than someone concerned about Sanchez’s career. The fights at lightweight (Sanchez/Florian for example) are easier to sell than the ones at welterweight.

I actually bet on Hathaway, need to check out what sort of earnings I am gonna get from that fight

is make an immediate decision based on this loss. He needs to take some time to examine what happended and re-evaluate his training and skillset before doing something drastic like chaning weight classes again.

Leaving LW just because he lost to BJ was a reactionary move that was probably not such a great idea.

If a major change was required, it would have to be Diego’s camp. I love Saulo and Xande, but they’ve done very little for Diego’s career since he joined them.

I’d like to see him continue to work on his strength training because he looked a lot softer and less explosive than the Diego who fought David Bielkheden in 2008. I definitely think he hasn’t physically acclimated himself back to 170, so hopefully he sticks to his power-lifting regimen.

On the technical side, he needs to go back to the drawing board and recognize that his striking and wrestling are preventing him from ever getting into the contender circle.