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Why Diego Sanchez might be capable of anything – except knowing when it's time to quit

[sigallery id=”yYxGTp5RhxmEvfhD9h9eCR” title=”Iaquinta def. Sanchez” type=”sigallery”]

The way Diego Sanchez went down the first time, it was nothing we haven’t seen before. It was familiar, in a way. Maybe even expected.

Because, come on, a guy like Sanchez? Someone who’s been at this as long as he has and still can’t resist an invitation to brawl? Sure, he’s bound to get clipped from time to time, even dropped. But he got right back up, just like he always has.

Then Al Iaquinta (13-3-1 MMA, 8-2 UFC) came back with the same right hand just a few seconds later – bang – right on the jaw. Down went Sanchez (27-10 MMA, 16-10 UFC) again, his head slumping toward his chest. The way his body tilted and rocked forward, you knew he wasn’t going to get up from this one. In all likelihood, he probably wouldn’t even remember it.

Which is tough, since this felt like the fight that probably ought to be his last.

Would you believe that this is the first time this has happened to him? Four weight classes, nearly 15 years, 37 fights as a pro and a handful more on the first season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” and still we’d never seen Sanchez truly knocked out. Not until now.

On one hand, it can happen to anybody. That’s just a fact of any sport in which head trauma is a given.

On the other hand, up until UFC Fight Night 108 in Nashville, it wasn’t something that happened to Sanchez.

Still, on paper things don’t look so dire. Sanchez is 35, which would put him firmly in his prime if he were a member of the modern heavyweight division. He’s been dropping every other fight for a few years now, but he’s never lost more than two in a row at any point in his career.

Some fighters, the win-loss record tells them when it’s time to go home. But Sanchez is 3-3 in his past six, which puts him on a numerically even footing with someone like Nate Diaz. If those are retirement numbers, then a lot of current UFC fighters need to get their farewell speeches ready.

But anyone who’s been paying attention to the fights and not just the results can see the cause for concern when it comes to Sanchez. Even when he wins he usually has to wade through some damage to do it, and admitting defeat – whether in the short-term or the long – doesn’t seem to be anything he’s capable of.

Never giving up is kind of Sanchez’s whole deal. That and an almost pathological love of combat, even when it’s going poorly for him. But as Iaquinta noted, not inaccurately, before this fight, “sometimes the stronger your heart is, the more you get beat up.”

The worrisome part is just how much that’s starting to feel like a statement on Sanchez’s whole career, or at least what’s left of it. You can’t question his toughness, and you definitely can’t ask for more in terms of psychological resolve.

Who has ever had more faith in the power of his own will? Who’s been as undeterred by pain and suffering? Who’s become as synonymous with a borderline insane degree of self-belief even in the face of diminishing returns?

Everything that made Sanchez successful now seems aligned against him. He’s too stubborn to quit. He’s too big a name to get by on easier fights against lesser competition. He’s got too much of the mad dog in him to resort to a safer fighting style, and yet he’s taken too many beatings over too many years to keep doing it the way he always has.

What does the fight game have left to offer him except more damage for less reward?

Times like these, I always think of Ken Shamrock. Not just because of the way his career has played out, but also because of what he said once about the challenge of convincing a fighter to retire.

To even get to the highest level of the sport, Shamrock observed, you have to be a true believer, the kind of person who’s willing to walk through fire. You have to be able to break your hand on another person’s skull and tell yourself that this is why you were given two hands to begin with.

And if you are that type of person, how are you supposed to admit to yourself that you’ve reached the point where walking through fire will only leave you burned?

The world of MMA is full of those kinds of people, and even among them Sanchez is a rarity. Professional tough guys marvel at his toughness. People who make dangerous choices with their health rightly wonder about his.

So when you see him after this knockout loss, tweeting about his “perfect CT scan,” how much hope can you have that his first total shutdown knockout will also be his last? After all he’s done in this sport, it seems the one thing he might be totally incapable of is walking away from it.

And for more on UFC Fight Night 108, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

Be sure to visit the MMA Junkie Instagram page and YouTube channel to discuss this and more content with fans of mixed martial arts.

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