Diego Sanchez: ‘I’m Here to Make a Tidal Wave’ at Featherweight with Instant Knockout

(SPONSORED CONTENT) -- Diego Sanchez is a well-travelled professional fighter who has been around the block as much as anybody before him. “The Dream” has taken on a who’s-who of elite foes throughout his career, one that has spanned from fighting at middleweight, welterweight and lightweight.

When Sanchez climbs through the door to enter hand-to-hand combat inside the Octagon once again, he’ll be plying his craft at featherweight. As crazy as it sounds, Sanchez told Sherdog.com in a recent interview that making the drop all the way down to 145 pounds has been much easier than anybody would have predicted.

The burning question, though, is why would Sanchez, who was arguably at his best at 170 pounds, drop down to featherweight?

“My decision to cut down to 145 is based on a lot of things,” Sanchez revealed. “It’s not just one thing or another. It started in November of 2014 when I tore the lateral collateral ligament in my right knee while training to fight Norman Parke. It only took about three months before I was fully healed but then I broke my collarbone, which required surgical repair and I had to get a titanium plate put in there. I was out for another six, seven months and I had a lot of time to reflect on a lot of things.

“My last fight was with Ross Pearson (at lightweight) and I didn’t have the hardest of weight cuts and in the back of my head, I thought that maybe it was possible for me to be able to fight at 145 pounds,” he continued. “When I see guys like Conor McGregor fighting at 145, it made me think. He’s a pretty muscular guy and he’s about my size, if not a little bigger, and if he can make 145, there’s no reason why I can’t. He’s got a big-time size and reach advantage against the other 145-pound fighters out there and that’s something I need. I need to have that advantage so I can do more damage to my opponents.”

Sanchez said that while he was healing his collarbone and travelling quite a bit for seminars and other fight-related obligations, he needed to find a way to make his fighting life easier. He’s always been passionate about staying in shape and taking care of his body, but with limited mobility while his body repaired itself, he came to a point in his life where he knew he had to do something different.

At times in his career, Sanchez struggled to make weight and he was tired of killing himself in the days and hours leading up to the weigh-ins. He even failed to make a contracted 158-pound catchweight limit when he fought Japanese legend Takanori Gomi two-and-a-half years ago. He said he had tried the established diets from such luminaries as Mike Dolce, George Lockhart and Rob Garcia and even trendy movements like the paleo diet.

While he didn’t say that those programs did not work, the Albuquerque-based brawler said that he had developed his own weight-cutting method instead. And, Sanchez believes, his new program is better than everything else in the sport and he’ll prove it when he steps onto the scale Friday, the final hurdle for when he locks horns with Ricardo Lamas in one of the featured bouts of UFC Fight Night 78 down in Monterrey, Mexico.

“A lot of the fighters in my gym don’t take supplements but I love them,” the Jackson-Wink fighter admitted. “Nutrition is something that I am very passionate about and taking supplements is something I’ve been doing for 15 years. During my off time, I was trying to stay busy and trying to do whatever I could to work around the injury but I was very limited. At this time, a supplement deal with Instant Knockout fat burner came through the gym and they were looking for a fighter to sponsor, to try out the new product.

“The first thing I did was check with my management to make sure Instant Knockout was something safe, something legal because I don’t ever want to be associated with anything that is bad or illegal,” he added. “But I did a lot of research on this, as did my manager, and when they asked me if I would try it, I was at around 190 pounds. I was in shape but I wasn’t dieting and I wasn’t shredded. Since I was in between fights and dealing with back-to-back injuries, I was kind of hurting for my family and this deal would be good for me. After discussing with my team, I decided to try Instant Knockout.”

Sanchez says that this new way of training and dieting has been a revelation, something that has reignited the flame that seemed to flicker out over the years. “The Dream” said that while he noticed how much fat and weight he was burning during the trial run and using Instant Knockout fat burner, it was then that he had the vision to realistically make the featherweight limit.

If Sanchez is able to make 145 pounds without a hitch and have his hand raised against Lamas, he’ll make history by being the only UFC fighter in history to not only compete in four different weight divisions, but also be victorious in each. But again, the question begs why Sanchez is transitioning to a division so much lighter than his normal weight?

“With me being at featherweight where I belong makes sense because my main training partner is Donald Cerrone,” he answered. “He is at 155 and look at him. He is tall, has that long reach advantage and I have short arms. He has evolved the mixed martial arts game to where you cannot have short arms. If you are short and have shorter arms, I don’t care what anybody says; you’ll get hit more.

“I’ve been in there with the best fighters in the world and they were all bigger than me,” he added. “In today’s climate of MMA, you have to have that distance. Look at Jon Jones against Daniel Cormier. Cormier couldn’t get inside to do anything and why? Because he was the shorter fighter.”

Sanchez admitted that in order dominate his foes going forward, he needs to have that size and reach advantage. He was inspired by Demian Maia’s drop from middleweight to welterweight and watching the jiu jitsu wizard outclass smaller foes, it motivated him. That is something he wants to do against Lamas.

“I’m looking to dominate this fight, to dominate Lamas,” he declared. “I’m looking to make an exclamation mark on my career and by entering the featherweight division, I will show the world that I am still a legitimate contender in the UFC. I’m sharpening my sword and polishing it, making it perfect for when I need to use it.”

Sanchez continuously mentioned McGregor during the interview but stated that his drop to featherweight isn’t exactly designed with the polarizing Irishman directly in his sights. He simply wants to run over Lamas and work his way into a title shot at 145 pounds. And, for good measure, he wants to prove all the doubters wrong.

“People think this is impossible, that the weight cut is going to kill me,” he said in closing. “Well, I’ve seen people who have run marathons in 120 degree heat. I’ve seen people who have climbed Mount Everest. Nobody believed in them but they did it. Ricardo Lamas is one of the guys who thinks this weight cut will kill me and that it will be an easy fight for him. But what he doesn’t know is how great of shape I’m in and that I’m not here to make a splash in the featherweight division. I’m here to make a tidal wave and I’m looking to finish Lamas and go for the title regardless of who is the champion.”