For 31 months the great Conor McGregor seemed all but invincible. Five top flight opponents entered the cage with him. Before the end of the second stanza all five had fallen to his mighty hands.
Through adversity and injury, against wrestler and striker, one thing held true in the world's most chaotic sport: McGregor would put his fists on another man, and that man would fall.
Death. Taxes. "The Notorious" Conor McGregor's left hand.
It's no wonder then. McGregor saw Nate Diaz as just another opponent. Diaz, in theory, was no different than any other man, which is to say he was born to be a victim of the great Conor McGregor. Just a skinny-fat pretender who had failed to claim the throne McGregor now sat so firmly upon.
Reality intruded, as it so often does in combat sports, in the form of a punch right to the face. Diaz's noodle-armed blows, it seemed, knocked the hubris out of McGregor, dropping him, forcing him to shoot for a confused takedown, the gazelle walking right into the lion's den to deliver swift justice.
It was there Diaz delivered the coup de grace, what Brazilians call the Mata leao—the lion killer. McGregor had reached for the stars but landed with a thud on the unforgiving Octagon mat. The future, once so bright, was suddenly very much in doubt.
And so, just five months removed from his first UFC defeat, McGregor found himself making the long walk to the cage to face Diaz again. This time he walked first—Diaz may not have held a title belt, but he was champion of this feud, already among the most memorable in UFC history.
After 25 minutes McGregor's hand was raised in victory—a majority decision that drove the internet into convulsions of both anger and joy. Diaz was left to mutter a plaintive "what the f--k?"
McGregor, gracious in victory, credited his rival with bringing out his best.
"You've got to respect Nate and the style of fighting that he brings," McGregor told the media at the post-fight press conference. "How can you not?"
When the chits were counted at FightMetric, Diaz had landed 166 significant strikes; McGregor scored 164. But fights aren't scored in the aggregate. They are judged round by round, with effective striking and grappling the defining criteria.
Who really won the rematch between Diaz and McGregor? We took a look at the fight, round by round, to deliver an entirely unofficial scorecard of our own.
Round 1
McGregor knew what he needed to do to beat Diaz. Benson Henderson had written the book on it. Josh Thomson and Rafael Dos Anjos had both traced from the same pattern. But devising a gameplan and executing it are two different things.
Diaz, with his wide stance, resting heavy on his front leg to maximize his boxing game, was born to be victimized by leg kicks. He, like his brother Nick, has a seeming disdain for them, both men choosing to eat kick after kick rather than adjust their stance or style.
Diaz had proven what he could do with his height and reach advantage in the first fight. McGregor would need to utilize the only weapon in his arsenal to re-establish his dominance at distance.
The problem? McGregor had thrown only a handful of Muay Thai style legkicks in his entire UFC career, depending instead on linear kicks of the kind popularized by Jon Jones. In fact he expressly eschewed the style, judging it's "flat footed" fighters to lack the movement necessary to keep up with him.
This fight depended on him perfectly executing a technique he had just five months to master—and he came out and did it like a multiple-time veteran of the Lumpinee Boxing Stadium.
The first five significant strikes of the bout were all McGregor leg kicks. By the end of the round Diaz's leg was already bruising and his stance was compromised.
"The leg kick is a huge factor in this fight," announcer Joe Rogan roared. "And Conor is using it brilliantly."
Even better, for McGregor at least, the leg kicks were opening up opportunities for his straight left hand. At 3:19 he dropped a befuddled Diaz to the mat with one, though replay would show clear eyes and a full heart.
Gone was the head hunter from the first fight. This McGregor was patient, composed and professional.
"That's the technical difference between the two of us," McGregor's trainer John Kavanagh offered as his fighter took a seat in the corner. For McGregor it was one down and four long rounds to go.
Round 2
"No more free kicks," Diaz's corner yells as the bell sounds to begin round two. Obviously listening he attempted to check a few early, but whether they landed or were deflected, the kicks served their intended purpose—opening up Diaz for McGregor's left hand.
The work, at least early in the fight, was much easier than in the initial bout. There McGregor landed plenty of haymakers, but only rarely cleanly, exhausting himself in the process. Here the leg kicks opened the door for everything else, preventing Diaz from circling away and backing him into the cage where McGregor could tee off with his power hand.
Two stunning lefts put Diaz down, though McGregor chose not to engage the Brazilian jiu jitsu expert on the ground.
"Nate's having a had time moving on that right leg," Rogan offered. "That could be a factor in why he's falling down like this."
In the corner, Kavanagh was suddenly a true believer in power of Thai boxing, yelling "On the leg, on the leg." McGregor obliged and landed a right hand to boot, belaying the notion that he's a one-handed fighter.
For a fighter often criticized as a head hunter in search only of the knockout, McGregor maintained his focus brilliantly. Diaz came willing to him and, over and over again, was met with a left hand counter no matter what he tried, McGregor parrying everything that came his way and responding with a straight punch that was more timing than pure speed.
"He's picking him apart right now," play-by-play announcer Mike Goldberg said. "It's all Conor McGregor."
Perhaps that was Diaz's cue—a check hook launched him back into the fight and a furious combination soon followed. Rogan began selling the idea that McGregor was slowing down, though it wasn't particularly obvious based on his incredible output.
The two men exchanged 71 significant strikes in the round and, for the first time, Diaz looked to be competing on even terms.
"We have ourselves a fight," Goldberg said. He didn't know how right he'd be.
Round 3
Diaz often fights with his hands down, sometimes even leaning forward to bait his opponent into a punch. His long frame and arms allow him to lean back and either avoid or absorb that blow. His own slapping right hook soon follows and then the storm comes, punch after punch until it feels like it the blows will never stop raining down.
McGregor's leg kicks had prevented that strategy from coming into play and, on this night at least, his left hand was quicker to launch than Diaz's right. It required a shift in tactics that came into play in the third round.
Diaz covered his head with both arms and threw a few awkward kicks of his own, sometimes lifting his knee off the ground, looking to close the distance on his Irish rival instead of countering his charge.
McGregor dealt with this change smoothly, sometimes landing stunning elbows when the bigger man attempted to get inside, other times resetting across the cage, causing Diaz to point and the crowd to jeer.
Perhaps feeling McGregor wilt, Diaz got some of his swagger back in the second half of the round, taunting McGregor who responded with some of the "spinning s--t" Team Diaz despises so much.
Eventually Diaz's tactical adjustments paid off. With just under a minute left he cornered McGregor against the cage, put the top of his head down on the short man's chin and proceeded to go to work Diaz style. Punch after punch flowed, to the body, head, arms and air.
McGregor never stopped fighting. On slow motion replay you can even see him avoiding or mitigating many of the worst blows. But they came in waves, a force of nature, inexorable and unyielding.
"Nate Diaz," Goldberg yelled,"Is looking to finish him right now."
It didn't seem to matter to Diaz where the punches landed. He was throwing them until someone made him stop—and only the bell managed to do that.
Round 4
While the announcer's focused on McGregor's alleged fatigue, the fight's brutality caught up with Diaz in this round. The blood poured and he was forced to constantly sweep it from his eyes. Worse, as his body was failing him, an intellectual challenge presented itself.
He had successfully adjusted to McGregor's new game plan in the previous round. Now it was McGregor's turn to show his fight IQ.
After 15 minutes of relying mostly on leg kicks and left hands, McGregor let his jab fly free. Like the leg kicks, it's never been much of a weapon for him—but here he managed to smoothly dance at distance, firing away with the kind of lead punch he'd never needed before in a UFC fight.
Some of his favored straight kicks to the body followed and, when Diaz attempted to repeat the feat of closing distance with a heavy guard surrounding his head, McGregor dug shots into his body with vicious glee.
We knew prior to this fight that McGregor was a gifted puncher and an excellent finisher. After the fourth round of this bout we knew something else—he was capable of outsmarting his foes too.
Round 5
Blood dripped to the mat, even after a minute in the corner working on the wound, as Diaz flexed his muscles at the sound of the bell.
"Look at the blood," Rogan said, speaking for us all. "Good lord."
While the judges scorecards indicated he needed a finish to win, Diaz clearly saw things differently. There was no sense of purpose or urgency from him to score a finish. Winning the round, seemingly, would be enough.
It wasn't.
The round was one of the closest of the fight. Diaz attempted to push McGregor into the cage and McGregor continued to land punches. The story of the round was McGregor's takedown defense. Though he didn't "dominate the clinch" like Kavanagh claimed in the corner, McGregor more than held his own in the championship rounds.
Against the cage McGregor worked sharp elbows that left Diaz leaking blood and overhooks to avoid meeting the mat. Diaz, of course, was Diaz, managing a collar tie and some nice work. But it was mostly a stalemate—for McGregor, that was as good as a win.
As the round approached the halfway point, a frustrated Diaz pointed at a retreating McGregor, then turned his finger up to offer a rude salute. McGregor responded with a multiple strike combination.
With ten seconds left in the fight Diaz finally scored the takedown he was desperate for. It was too late to mean much of anything. Both men raised their arms high after the bell rang. Both deserved to soak in the applause.
"Wow," Rogan said. "What a fight...Those men just gave everything they had. Win, lose or draw, that was an incredible performance by both fighters."
It felt like a close fight and it was. But, though the Fight Metric stats show both men landing significant strikes in almost identical numbers, McGregor scored the cleaner, stronger blows throughout the bout.
Though not nearly as definitive as their bout in March, this was clearly McGregor's fight. He took on a bigger, taller, more experienced fighter and did everything necessary to eliminate all those advantages.
"We win or we learn," McGregor told Rogan after the fight. "I learned from the last contest."
Now it's Diaz's turn to reinvent himself—bring on the trilogy.
Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.
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