“Surprise, surprise! The king is back!” If you want this trilogy its on my terms. “I knew what I had to do this time around and I did it”.
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McGregor who stepped up his game from his previous bout dominated the first two rounds landing definitive and deadly punches which cut Diaz wide open, however as the pair entered the final 3 rounds McGregor exhausted with Diaz taking advantage with some hard hitting shots of his own, although the Dubliner was not to be undone as he found a second wind and fought back bravely to hold off a taunting Diaz.
Diaz hit the deck twice early in the second round but McGregor declined to take the fight to the mat, signalling for Diaz to get up.
Both fighters were struggling with fatigue in the final two rounds, which were heavy on clinches around the cage, and Diaz managed to take McGregor down in the final seconds of the fifth.
“I came here to fight”.
“I respect him as a veteran”, Garbrandt said.
This shattered McGregor’s record of $1 million, which he earned in his initial fight against Diaz at UFC 196 in March. McGregor pummeled Diaz with multiple shots in the first round, giving Diaz a bloody facial gash, but Diaz weathered the storm and countered with a few shots of his own near the end of the round. McGregor agreed instead to fight Diaz in a welterweight bout, and Diaz finished the flyweight champion with a rear naked choke in the second round, ending McGregor’s 15-match winning streak.
A rematch was immediately set for the landmark UFC 200 card but canceled when McGregor announced his retirement and refused to meet with media.
Prior to losing at UFC 196, McGregor boasted that he would “breeze past $10 million” after receiving his piece of the show’s pay-per-view pie. The garrulous McGregor had promised to finish Diaz early this time around, and promotion for the fight included a bottle-throwing melee at a press conference Wednesday.
In the co-main event, light heavyweight Anthony Johnson walk away $135,000 to show and another $135,000 if he emerges victorious.
Johnson (22-5) flattened Teixeira with the shot, forcing the referee to call an early end to the fight. Johnson has 13th victories in his past 14 fights.
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Meanwhile, Tim Means and Sabah Homasi open the main card, followed by Hyun Gyu Lim and Mike Perry, and a highly intriguing contest pitting Rick Story and Donald Cerrone.
