THE CANADIAN PRESS
Diego Sanchez has put the nightmare behind him.
The 29-year-old welterweight has left San Diego to return to his roots in Albuquerque, N.M., changed his training camp and looked to put past demons behind him.
“I’ve totally restructured my whole life,” Sanchez told a media conference call in advance of meeting Martin (The Hitman) Kampmann in the main event of a televised card Thursday from Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center (Rogers Sportsnet, check local listings).
“It showed in my last fight (a win over Paulo Thiago) and I plan on it showing in this fight.”
That includes dropping his Nightmare nickname.
“I let that go, I let the Nightmare go,” he said. “To me, I see some negative in it. The nightmare is something’s that negative and kind of evil. I don’t want to represent that. I want to represent positivity. And I want to represent the good.
“I look back on my whole career and I’m like ‘The Nightmare, the Nightmare was myself. I was my own nightmare.’ All the times that I fell off track and got into drinking and got into smoking weed — the things that brought me down. The partying. That was my nightmare. I was my own nightmare.
“I said ‘You know what? I’m grown up. I’m going to let that name go and I just want to be Diego Sanchez.’ I don’t even need a nickname, I’m me and that’s it.”
He said he had briefly considered changing his nickname to The Dream, but opted against it. Still the UFC website now lists him as The Dream.
Winner of Season 1 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” Sanchez won his first six fights in the UFC, earning a reputation as a man possessed, who walked to the cage chanting “Yes.”
Losses to rival Josh Koscheck and Jon Fitch in 2007 set him back. He won his next four and then the wheels fell off again
Prior to beating Thiago at UFC 121 last October, Sanchez was roughed up in losses to John Hathaway at UFC 114 and B.J. Penn at UFC 107.
A rampant Penn manhandled Sanchez for five rounds in a lightweight title fight December 2009, sending him to hospital with a giant gash on his forehead, possible broken nose, lip torn apart in two places and the rest of his face battered and swollen.
“In 10 years in this business, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone more busted up than Diego is right now,” UFC president Dana White said that night.
For Sanchez, the pain lasted a long time.
“I hit rock bottom after the B.J. Penn fight, I really did. I blew through all my money, I made some very bad decisions. I had this scam artist scam me real bad. I was embezzled over $175,000.
“I really hit rock bottom and I had to come back home. I needed my family love. I just was humbled, 100 per cent. I was humbled back down to zero. I had no ego, no nothing.”
One fight later, in May 2010, Sanchez was almost knocked senseless by an early Hathaway knee in a welterweight bout he lost by unanimous decision.
“I was still in the funk for John Hathaway,” Sanchez said. “I was training, I was going to the bar and drinking beer after training. I didn’t even take him seriously at all. I thought I’m going to go in there, I’m going to knock this guy out, I’m going to take him down.
“And first round I got hit with the knee in the face real hard and I couldn’t recover from it. I wasn’t in the physical shape or the spiritual or the mental (shape). I shouldn’t have been in the ring for that fight, period.
“After that fight, I said ‘You know what I’m going to get back to what got me there’ and that was Greg Jackson’s (gym), high altitude and just earning it. And No. 1, my Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. I let go of the sinful life and just started living my life for Jesus Christ and just doing the right things. Not being on that party-fame bus.”
Sanchez (24-4) left the city and moved into the mountains.
“That’s the best thing I’ve ever did. Just being out there away from the city, I don’t even have cable at my house. I feel very spiritual and real close to God and I just make sure I get my work done and I rest well. I’ll have fun after the fight.”
Sanchez said life and temptation led him down the wrong path.
“Temptation will lead anybody off the path. And I’ve been back and forth in my career several times. But when I turned 28, I was like ‘Man, I’ve got two years until I turn 30. I better get myself together.’
“I’ve just been through a lot. In the end, I really really had to hit rock bottom one last time and it was the best thing that ever happened to me because I was humbled and I came back home. I’m where I belong now.”
Quitting his sport was never an option, however.
“MMA’s my life,” he said. “When I’m not training, that’s when my life gets worse. … I’ve got to be in the gym. If I’m not in the gym, I start to fall apart.”
Sanchez, winner of Season 1 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” has fought at lightweight in the past but says he has closed the door on 155 pounds. He will remain at welterweight and, in fact, has bulked up by virtue of weightlifting sessions with Willie Parks, a former Olympic wrestler and aspiring MMA fighter.
“I think the fans are going to be real surprised when they see just the way I look, the way I feel, and the way I’m able to impress my will with my physical strength.”
Sanchez is back at Greg Jackson’s gym, a training home he abandoned some years ago when other welterweights like Canadian Georges St-Pierre came on board.
Jackson, he says, has reminded him that his fighting style is that of a predator — “a relentless ground-and-pound guy with unlimited endurance.”
Being back with Jackson means having a game plan.
“That’s something that I never had before … I’d just get in there and scrap.”
Whatever Sanchez’s life path, the 28-year-old Kampmann (17-4) is preparing for a handful Thursday.
“He always brings it and I admire his tenacity in the cage,” Kampmann said of Sanchez. “I’m definitely expect a tough fight but that’s what I want.”
The Las Vegas-based Dane is coming off a loss to Jake Shields at UFC 121.
