Josh Koscheck wants Diaz, Maia, Ellenberger, or McDonald for next fight

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Josh Koscheck was hoping to fight one more time in 2012, but it looks like he will be waiting until the New Year to return to action.

The former Ultimate Fighter season one competitor has been out of action since May when he lost a close, split decision to Johny Hendricks at UFC on Fox 3.

He was expected to return in September to face Jake Ellenberger at UFC 151, but an injury sidelined Koscheck and pushed him out of the fight.

Now that he’s healthy again, Koscheck was hoping to get scheduled for a fight as soon as possible, but according to the fighter’s latest message via Twitter, he’s going to have to wait until 2013.

“Doesn’t look like the UFC has a fight for me until 2013. So I’ll just train and get better,” Koscheck wrote on Tuesday.

When he does come back, there are a few names on his wish list for opponents, but Koscheck has never been too much in the business of hand picking who he will fight.

“I’d like to fight Nick (Diaz), Demian Maia, Jake Ellenberger, Rory MacDonald, any of those guys will do it,” said Koscheck.

The former NCAA champion wrestler has even offered to venture back up to middleweight, something he’s done multiple times in the past when talking about stepping up when the UFC needed him.

“They know I’ll fight anyone,” Koscheck wrote. “I even said I’d fight at 185 if needed.”

http://www.mmaweekly.com/josh-koscheck-wont-return-until-2013-targets-diaz-maia-ellenberger-or-macdonald

I think he is a good match up with Diaz, we can see if KOS can handle his stand up and if Diaz can now deal with a wrestler now.

I would be very surprised if Diaz could stuff even one of Koscheck's takedowns. I think if Koscheck decided he wanted to turn that fight into a lay-n-pray affair, that's exactly what would happen.
His ground and pound isn't good enough to threaten Diaz, and I think Diaz has much better stand-up than Koscheck, so unfortunately, I see a long night of Koscheck holding Diaz down and waiting for the bell.

down for maia or Diaz. I think Koscheck would be a little back and fourth here in the sense if he got maia he would probably try and keep it standing and like trigg said if diaz he will probably hold him for 3 rounds to a boring UD.

I'm a bit shocked that you guys think Diaz won't be able to work off his back... KOS has never faced some one with a good bottom ground game... or at least no where near Nicks caliber.

Chrom wrote:

I'm a bit shocked that you guys think Diaz won't be able to work off his back... KOS has never faced some one with a good bottom ground game... or at least no where near Nicks caliber.

Well that's why I said Koscheck's ground and pound isn't good enough to threaten Diaz on the ground. Diaz is a fantastic BJJ practitioner, but while Nate is more offensive with his, Nick seems to utilize it in a more defensive way.
Basicly, nobody can do shit to Nick on the ground because he's way too sound in his technique (BJ didn't even threaten him in the slightest when he got Nick down), but he rarely uses it offensively to submit anybody, likely because he's stalling for the stand-up and not worried about taking any punishment.
What this boils down to is that Koscheck is a good enough wrestler to take Diaz down at will, but he doesn't have the skillset to do anything about it once he gets him there.
I envision this resulting in lots of takedowns, lots of stalling, and lots of stand-ups by the ref.

It would be interesting to see if Kos was smart enough to even take Diaz down. He has got so KO happy he seems to have forgotten his bread and butter.