Tyler Diamond confident with his wrestling but might just throw bombs with Brendan Loughnane at PFL 4
Tyler Diamond wouldn’t be surprised if his matchup with Brendan Loughnane is an all-out war.
Diamond (12-1) meets Loughnane (20-3) at 2021 PFL 4, which takes place Thursday at Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, N.J. The main card airs on ESPN2 following prelims on ESPN+.
At PFL 1, Loughnane scored a quick first-round finish over Sheymon Moraes to top the featherweight standings, while Diamond outlasted Sung Bin Jo in a back-and-forth battle.
Considering the way their fights panned out, Diamond thinks many are overlooking him in this matchup, but he has no issue in engaging in another war if necessary.
“I think he’s super tough, he’s a great striker, I think he brings the fight every single time,” Diamond told reporters at the 2021 PFL 4 media day. “He seems super popular, and I think I may be the underdog in this fight according to people, but man, I’m the favorite in my mind so I’m just super excited to get in there. I knew him and I were gonna cross paths at some point whether it was the finals or the playoffs or whatever, but it’s gonna be this second regular-season fight and that’s fine with me.”
He continued, “I’m a very good wrestler, I feel confident in my wrestling, but shoot, I might just go out there and throw bombs the whole time with his guy, I don’t even know. I’m just gonna be free-flowing in there, and I’m just gonna fight my fight intelligently.”
The general notion is that the quick turnaround benefits Loughnane and harms Diamond, but the standout wrestler insists that he took nothing more than the usual knocks in his fight with Jo.
“I didn’t take that much damage, to be honest,” Diamond said. “Like he dropped me in the third round just because I got lazy but other than a couple of bumps and bruises on my head and sore legs – I went running two days later and then I got back to actual full MMA training a week later. I know that Brendan has been saying something like I took a lot of damage in the fight, but I didn’t take that much damage at all. I pretty much completely dominated the fight, I didn’t get punched a ton, and I feel fine.”
