Two of MMA’s most consistently entertaining fighters are looking to do battle as Anthony Pettis and Diego Sanchez have expressed interest in fighting each other.
When thinking of the most exciting fighters within the lightweight or welterweight divisions, names like Diego Sanchez and Anthony Pettis would surely come to mind.
For the man known as “Showtime,” Pettis has left his mark in the MMA history books with many highlight-reel finishes accompanied by becoming the final World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) 155-pound titleholder. Since that title gaining, he’s gone on to claim the UFC lightweight crown as well.
Having started his career in 2007, Pettis now finds himself 31-fights deep into his professional career.
As for another notable name and one of the current longest-tenured UFC athletes in Sanchez, he began his career in 2002 and only needed three years to reach the grandest MMA stage when he won the inaugural season of The Ultimate Fighter at middleweight.
Despite recent resurgent efforts from both men, they now find themselves coming off of unanimous decision losses. Pettis to Nate Diaz at UFC 241 in August, and Sanchez to Michael Chiesa at UFC 239 in July.
Looking ahead to the future, both fighters have made it clear that they would like to meet for their next time out as Sanchez revealed on Instagram on Monday.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2MfsesgtCw/?utm_source=ig_embed
Now it appears that it will just come down to whether or not the UFC will want to match the two up. Even Pettis’ longtime head coach at Roufusport, Duke Roufus, likes the idea. But if not Sanchez, he has another name in mind.
“An interesting fight that I think would be kind of fun is Diego Sanchez and Anthony – two old-school, crazy Latino legends of the sport,” Roufus told MMA Junkie. “If you want to talk about barnburners, that would be fun.”
“I think former champion Carlos Condit would be fun, especially at 170. I like those two fights a lot. We’ll see what happens if it matches up. I mean, now I’d just like to see another fun fight that motivates him to want to keep doing great things.”
Funny enough, Carlos Condit happens to be a training partner of Sanchez’s at JacksonWink MMA in Albuquerque, New Mexico. However, “The Natural Born Killer” will first have his hands full with Mickey Gall on December 7 at UFC Washington before he can think about a potential fight with Pettis.
As for Pettis, he is still recovering from a broken foot that he suffered against the aforementioned Diaz. The date mentioned by Pettis in Sanchez’s Instagram post was from December 14 at UFC 245 in Las Vegas.
The following fights have been reported for that event (not all have been confirmed):
- Bantamweight: (C) Amanda Nunes vs. Germaine de Randamie
- Featherweight: (C) Max Holloway vs. Alexander Volkanovski
- Flyweight: Jessica Eye vs. Viviane Araujo
- Welterweight: Matt Brown vs. Ben Saunders
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The Scrap’s Drake Riggs is a MMA writer and YouTuber based out of Brush Prairie, Washington who specializes in feature pieces, the women’s fight scene, lists, news coverage, and rankings. Riggs has been a passionate MMA fan since 2009 and has written for various news sources. You can follow him on Twitter (@Dre_Kriggs).
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