Sherdog’s Top 10: One-Round Fights

Nick Diaz excels in slugfests. | Photo: Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com

1. Nick Diaz vs. Paul Daley
Strikeforce “Diaz vs. Daley”
April 9, 2011

It does not get any better than this. Diaz-Daley is the gold standard of one-round fights and one of the very best scraps of any length in the entire history of the sport. It encapsulated the Strikeforce run that made Diaz one of the most popular fighters of his generation and symbolized the matchmaking that left fans with fond memories of the defunct promotion.

No fight has ever packed more or better action into a brief period than Diaz-Daley. “Semtex” dropped Diaz to the canvas almost immediately, nearly soccer kicked him and did his best to take his head off with knees and elbows in the clinch. Diaz rallied, pushed Daley to the fence and unloaded with a series of head-body punching combinations that forced the Englishman to shoot for a takedown.

They exchanged again, and this time, Daley leveled Diaz with his trademark left hook, jumped on him with punches and nearly finished him from top position. With 30 seconds left, both fighters were back on their feet, Daley was clearly exhausted and Diaz pounced. He pushed Daley to the fence once again, unloaded a sequence of 10 punches and then shoved the Englishman to the canvas, where he followed up and forced referee John McCarthy to stop the fight.

Diaz-Daley is as good as it gets.

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