SPARRING LEON "ROCKY" EDWARDS FOR THE NATE DIAZ FIGHT UFC 263 ARIZONA

You can help support the channel via Patreon here:https://www.patreon.com/prostriking?fan_landing=true I had to use a sound track as there was a lot of loud background music at the gym! This was Leons last spar before the fight with Nate Diaz so I tried my best to simulate Nate as much as possible. Nate has been one of my favorite fighters since the Ultimate fighter season 5 so it was quite a strange experience to pretend to be him in the gym for 3 months, yet alone corner a fight against him. Sparring Rocky was not a fun experience. I am not a natural Southpaw so switching stance and getting blasted with leg kicks absolutely sucked. The plan was to take a leaf out of Ben Henderson and Raphael Dos Anjos win over Diaz. They both heavily utilised leg kicks against him in the southpaw vs southpaw match up so we felt rocky would be able to break Diaz down over 5 rounds. The body lock takedowns and sweeps were also a big component and in the sparring Leon went to them quite bit (unfortunately for me) so it was brilliant to see them work in the fight. This was still during the Covid period so I lost out on a lot of income to go over and help Rocky but it wasn't in vain as he put on an excellent performance (up until the end of the 5th which was absolute madness haha). I have a full VLOG series of the last weeks of camp feel free to check out, and hope you enjoy the vid, Nath Epps.