Nate Diaz has lashed out at UFC President Dana White for handing Conor McGregor a rematch at UFC 200, insisting the promotion has acted as if his win over the Notorious was a fluke.
Diaz upset the odds to beat McGregor at UFC 196, choking out the brash Irishman in the second round of the fight. The pair are set to square off again at the Las Vegas showpiece this summer. The man from Stockton is certainly not convinced the Notorious deserved another shot, per Brett Okamoto of ESPN.com:
Since that last fight, have you heard any praise for me from Dana or the UFC? None at all.
How much praise has that motherf--ker got? I've never lost a fight and not wanted to fight the guy 10 minutes later. The UFC is pumping him up again, saying he wants to redeem himself and giving him all this credit for it. It's like, dude, I've been obsessed with every fight I've ever lost. This is a gift for him to get it right away.
Diaz does deserve immense credit for the way he performed at UFC 196. He was drafted in at very late notice to replace the injured Rafael Dos Anjos, who was scheduled to face McGregor for the lightweight title, giving him little time to prepare for an awkward opponent.
In the fight itself he kept composed, too. McGregor was dominant in the first round, but Diaz waited for his openings, landed some heavy shots and then used his skills on the ground to get this one done. Here’s a reminder of how the fight finished, per BT Sport UFC:
Diaz also suggested in the same interview that the UFC seem happy to brush this result under the carpet as a one off. Although he’s adamant that’s not the case and has demanded some plaudits should he beat McGregor for the second time.
“I swear to God, the UFC thinks it was an accident or something," Diaz said. "They think it was an accident, and now they're saying, 'Let's get Nate back in there and take him out before he gets any bigger.’ I don't think so. I've fought everyone in the UFC, and they better give me some motherf--king compliments if I win this fight.”
McGregor’s trash talk, quick wit and willingness to take on challenges has made him the most high-profile fighter in the promotion.
MMA writer Josh Gross thinks the fact that an interim featherweight title will be awarded to the winner of Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar, who will fight on the same card at UFC 200, is a "gift" for McGregor:
However, Diaz has claimed that to appropriately avenge his loss, the stipulations surrounding the fight need to be the same as they were at UFC 196.
“It's not cool to go in and make your own set of rules because you lost on another set,” he said. “If you're going to avenge your loss, you've gotta go out and avenge it for real. It's like a guy saying, 'Let's fight again, but no takedowns.' That's weak, and he knows that.”
Bleacher Report’s Mike Chiappetta thinks that even the conditions of the rematch show just how much sway the Irishman has in the promotion:
Given that the last fight between these two was McGregor’s welterweight debut, it’s difficult to know whether or not this was an anomaly of a result or not. Diaz, after all, has been beaten when coming up against elite opposition, and while the Irishman has proven he’s in that bracket at featherweight, to do so at 170 pounds is a completely different matter.
Should he win a second time there’s no way Diaz will go under the radar. Given McGregor’s gravitas, two wins in a row over him would pave the way for some big opportunities for the Stockton star. You suspect he’d take great delight in sending the Irishman back down to featherweight with his tail between his legs.
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