Press conferences and flowing coherent quotes be damned, 2012 could be the year of the Diaz Brothers.
With his performance at UFC 141, Nate joined his older Nick as one of the UFC title contenders to watch over the next 12 months.
Nate's striking, looking more and more like his brother's with each fight, simply overwhelmed Donald Cerrone. According to Fight Metric, he fired 391 shots the way of Cerrone over 15 minutes. By the time Cerrone walked into the postfight press conference, his face was so swollen it looked like he'd had a poor reaction to a bug bite or food allergy.
The lightweight division is wide open behind champ Frankie Edgar. Diaz, ranked No. 13 in the USA Today/Bloody Elbow Top 25 lightweight rankings, has already faced four fighters in the top 10. Maybe a rematch against Gray Maynard or Clay Guida is up next?
Yahoo! Sports' lead MMA writer Kevin Iole joined me after the fights to talk Diaz in 2012.
