This has been a big year for the UFC, and one of the major components to that big year was the two back-to-back fights between Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz. The original fight at UFC 196 and the rematch at UFC 202 both broke records to become the biggest pay-per-views in UFC history, and the fights themselves were legendary barnburners that left fans thrilled and exhilarated.
So of course the UFC would be interested in a rubber match between Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz to settle the score, right? Wrong! For some reason, this popular idea amongst the fans is just the latest massive fight that UFC president Dana White wants nothing to do with.
“You can’t do three,” White said in extended interview with radio station Hot97, via Fox Sports. “[Conor] ends up saying ‘let’s do this Nate Diaz thing’ and dude, he’s two weight classes heavier than you and he doesn’t care. So we do the fight. Conor has to try to weigh 168 when they’re weighing in at 170. The night of the fight, Diaz comes in at 190. Now Conor McGregor is a 45, 55 pound guy and if you look at the wars he’s had with Diaz, you can only have so many of those wars in your career. It doesn’t make sense. That’s why we have weight classes. It ended up being an amazing fight, but you don’t want to keep doing that.”
That’s ignoring the fact that Nate Diaz has fought at 155 pounds for most of his career and the first fight was only contested at 170 because it was put together too late for an out of shape Diaz to do a proper weight cut. But we get it — White has other ideas for McGregor, ideas that ideally involve defending the featherweight title he took off Jose Aldo in December of 2015. Maybe McGregor and Diaz can scrap away down the road?
“I don’t know,” White concluded. “1-1’s good, they shouldn’t have fought in the first place. We’ll see what happens.”
What a strange answer regarding the biggest fights in the UFC’s history. Does Dana White not like money? He didn’t want Conor McGregor facing Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 either, instead pushing for McGregor to face Aldo. Now that he’s cashed out his 10 percent stake of the $4 billion UFC sale, are his priorities somewhere else now? It just seems odd that a matchup the fans want that basically guarantees truckloads of money seems to inspire no desire in him.
(Via FOX Sports)