Diego ”The Nightmare” Sanchez har hängt med i UFC i ett par år nu. Han dök upp i allmänhetens ögon i The Ultimate Fighter säsong 1, där han vann turneringen i mellanvikt. Han gick sedan dess ner till en lite mer passande viktklass i form av weltervikt, men har även varit nere och nosat på lättvikt ett tag.
Väl i lättviktsklassen fick Sanchez chansen på att gå en match för lättviktstiteln mot BJ Penn, en match som han förlorade efter att doktorn stoppade det hela i femte ronden efter BJ Penn gjort lite som han velat. Sanchez hade haft någorlunda kontroll på sitt liv vid det tillfället, men här spann det ur kontroll i en alkohol- och drog-fylld mardröm.
“After I lost the B.J. Penn fight, I lost control. I lost control of life,” berättar Sanchez till MMAWeekly. “I had just made my biggest payday and I was just down about the loss. That was my dream to become world champion, and it still is. But it was at my fingertips and the way I lost, getting cut, so brutally cut, I was beat up.
I took the wrong path. I took the path of partying, and I was just drinking away my sorrows. I was handling the problem the wrong way.”
Lite festande kan vem som helst klara av till och från, men gör man det för fel anledning så slutar det sällan bra. Den här mardrömmen han nu till slut vaknat ifrån det är en mardröm som han kom 170 000 dollar fattigare ur.
“I let some bad influences get into my life and it was a downward spiral. It was like a tornado sucking everything in. I let a person that I thought was a friend, a real close friend, someone that would help me with finances, I had him helping me out with stuff. Turned out I got embezzled for over $170,000. He conned me. I got conned so bad. And in the same time when I got conned, I was just wasting the money that I had earned.”
“I was sucked into a life of sin. I was smoking weed, I was drinking, partying, and it just really, truly held me back from my potential.”
“You know what I did? I grew up,” förklarar Sanchez. “I stopped living that little young life that I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it, and that’s how I want to do it. Now, I’m (living) a different life, a real adult life.”
Han har numera lämnat det livet bakom sig och har ett nytt smeknamn på köpet – The Dream.
