Nick Diaz believes he beat Anderson Silva: 'I don’t know how they judge fights sometimes'

LAS VEGAS -- Nick Diaz was as sure as he could be after the fight. He wasn't as confident in the post-fight press conference. But the fact remained: Diaz believed he beat Anderson Silva at UFC 183 on Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

"I felt like I won every round," Diaz told Joe Rogan immediately after the bout.

The judges felt differently. Two judges gave Silva all five rounds. The other had Diaz winning just one round. Diaz has never really seen eye-to-eye with judges and admittedly doesn't quite understand the scoring system.

"I know how I feel at the end of the fight," Diaz said at the press conference. "I don't know what the judges are thinking, but I definitely pushed forward the whole time. I don't know how they judge fights sometimes."

In Diaz's mind, he was the one coming forward and landing. And the former Strikeforce welterweight champion said he saw all of Silva's punches coming.

"I get real confused on how to win a fight out here initially," Diaz said. "And then nowadays when you watch their counterstrikes and all that stuff. I don't know what's what until I see it. I don't know how many punches were thrown or what. I just know that I could see this guy's punches. He don't think he could have finished me. If anybody was gonna finish anybody it was gonna be me finishing him."

Diaz, who needed stitches for a nasty cut under his left eye, didn't get blown out in any round, though most felt like Silva won at least four of them. The Stockton bad boy certainly had his moments, especially in the clinch where Silva was thought to have a massive advantage. Diaz was the aggressor at times, but perhaps not with enough volume, and it was clear training with the likes of kickboxing marvels Joe Schilling and Artem Levin was beneficial to Diaz's game.

"I just never try to beat somebody on the scorecards," Diaz said. "It's never happened. It's not in me, I think. I'm real quick to just criticize somebody for even going there. 'Are you doing this really? Are you really gonna not try to finish this fight?'"

Diaz, 31, did admit somewhat that the fight was open to interpretation. He just knows how he feels about what happened.

"I don't know how people think, either," Diaz said. "I don't know how you guys saw the fight. I don't know if you guys are sitting there right now, like 'he thinks he won, how stupid. How does he think he won?'"

There were some regrets afterward, including some clowning Diaz did in the first round. Diaz laid down on the ground at one point and seconds later put himself against the cage, trying to draw Silva in. Later, Diaz spun around and showed Silva his backside.

"I'm sure the judges don't like that," Diaz said.

That's just Diaz being Diaz, though. Silva never bit on any of those ploys. The former UFC middleweight champion stayed a counterstriker and was effective playing that game, scoring with kicks and right hands. Diaz felt like he got the better of the boxing exchanges.

"I can see his punches coming a mile away," Diaz said. "The more he punches, the more he was gonna end up with the sh*t end of the stick, so he wasn't gonna punch or anything."

Diaz has never been a big fan of judges. He complained about them after losses to Carlos Condit and Georges St-Pierre, too. Overall, Diaz has now lost three straight fights, though there was a nearly two-year break in between the St-Pierre bout and this one.

It was a similar Diaz in the Octagon and then afterward. But he was different leading up to the fight with regards to Silva. He talked zero trash, a surprising development for someone known for his unfiltered words.

"You see me out here, I didn't try to intimidate this dude or anything like that leading up to the fight," Diaz said. "Maybe that could have won me the fight. He stayed the hell away from me the first round when I came out and flipped the switch on."