Saturday night marked one of the biggest nights for the UFC.
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Not a bad way for the WME-IMG ownership group to kick off the first UFC event under the umbrella.
McGregor was the busier of the pair in the opening round, landing kicks to Diaz’s lead leg at will before sending the American crashing to the canvas courtesy of a vicious left strike. Page2sports.com had it a 48-47 in favor for McGregor.
McGregor was supposed to challenge then-lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos for his 155-pound belt at UFC 196, but Diaz took the fight at 170 pounds on 11 days’ notice when the champ got hurt.
“Surprise surprise mother f***** the King is back“, McGregor said after the bout. “I would beat both they asses”, Mayweather Sr. told the Mayweather Boxing Channel. With $3 milllion for McGregor and $2 million for Diaz you can be certain they have atleast 5 million reasons to do it again. The California native expressed his disbelief about the scorecards after the fight and immediately demanded a trilogy.
After stating he had an injury during training, Diaz too pushed for the trilogy.
“I thought I won, at least three rounds to two and I didn’t even think that was a question”, Diaz said in a UFC interview after the fight.
In doing so, McGregor becomes the first UFC fighter to earn a post-fight bonus in seven consecutive fights.
McGregor made the most of it with a majority decision win over Diaz following a five round war between the two combatants. He said that their next bout should be at 155 pounds, in the UFC’s lightweight division, after he fought the bigger man and overcame.
“They can deny that all they want but I did”.
“I’m coming for you Daniel”, Johnson said, speaking to current light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier, who was seated near the cage.
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UFC is incrementally growing in global appeal and that has been exemplified by the prize money dished out to “The Notorious” Conor McGregor for his thrilling UFC 202 triumph over Nate Diaz. I got that all on tape so just to set it off, not to make excuses because I’ve got that all video’d [sic] up but he should have finished me off.
