The highly anticipated rematch between Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz headlined UFC 202 Saturday night, and the results saw McGregor pull out a tight majority decision that saw one judge call the fight a draw.
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Irishman McGregor started the second in similar fashion, again dropping Diaz with another straight left hand and again allowing him back to his feet.
That respect is hard to avoid when two fighters share the Octagon and battle the way McGregor and Diaz did once again. He said that McGregor ran around the cage the whole fight and should have had points deducted.
He said: “Hey, good job today, Conor, but we’re going for three”. I was just talking to him.
Nearly immediately, both combatants started talking rubber match. “I don’t know, we’ll see what happens”.
In a fight that sets up a deciding third bout for this trilogy, Conor McGregor got his revenge against Nate Diaz, which means the memes were either criticizing McGregor for being cautious, or making fun of Diaz for getting beat up. “I’m ready for [No. 3]. I gave you [No. 2]”.
“I stayed calm with it and bounced shots off the shoulders”, he said. “Like my coach says, ‘You either win or you learn, ‘ and I learned from the last contest”.
Diaz explained: “A couple of times I felt he was done, you know, and I didn’t finish it off”.
“They can deny that all they want, but I did”.
“Now this trilogy is on my terms, come back down to 155 and we’ll do it”.
Yet Diaz did land more strikes overall than McGregor, and he sounded off after the bout, accusing “The Notorious” of running away from contact.
McGregor might want to defend his 145-pound title against Jose Aldo, who got beat by McGregor past year. I didn’t get to train. “If I was Conor, I’d defend my title”.
It seems like 2016 is the year MMA fighters finally got paid big money for their efforts.
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McGregor put on a masterclass of mixing kicks with his trademark punches in the first two rounds until Diaz threatened a comeback, which forced the UFC featherweight champion to show ruggedness that had never previously been drawn from him. “‘I kicked his knee clean, I think it was in the first round and then I just kept kicking but other than that I’m ideal”.
