Another weekend of fisticuffs has come and gone, as UFC 202 went down last Saturday night (Aug. 20, 2016) from inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Conor McGregor was cracking Nate Diaz, pinging his head over and over just as predicted. “His face was bust open and he’s still coming forward”, he said, before calling Diaz, who won the pair’s first bout at UFC196 in March, a “hell of a competitor”.
McGregor made the most of it with a majority decision win over Diaz following a five round war between the two combatants.
McGregor fought back and had the best of the final two rounds to win a famous victory.
“I don’t care what anyone says – I helped bring this game to another level”, McGregor said.
Both men topped their previous payday when they first crossed paths as McGregor pocketed $1 million for his second-round submission loss to Diaz, who took home a flat salary of $500,000. “He’s running around the Showtime offices begging those executives to come up with a $100 million cash to fight me”.
Instead the anticipated rematch was set for UFC 202. The garrulous McGregor has promised to finish Diaz early this time around, and promotion for the fight included a bottle-throwing melee at a press conference Wednesday.
Earlier this week, UFC president Dana White claimed that McGregor could be stripped of his featherweight crown if he opts to pursue a fight outside of his weight class.
This time around though, McGregor ensured that he had enough in the tank with the fight going on for the full five rounds. As expected, he was able to cut Diaz, and Diaz was affected by blood in the eyes throughout the second half of the fight.
Diaz landed 271 total strikes compared with 190 for McGregor. Diaz got dropped a couple of times, it looked like he was done, and he came back. But I don’t think it’s a very good business move for him to be taking any other fights.
So with the rematch against Aldo not longer a guarantee, top featherweight contender just at the opportunity to call out Aldo. “And then he stepped in and I beat him in 13 seconds”.
Donald Cerrone (31-7) got an impressive knockout victory over Rick Story (19-9) in a battle of ranked welterweights.
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“My respect to the opponent”, McGregor said.
