According to people behind the scenes, the UFC 196 pay per view headlined by Conor McGregor vs Nate Diaz may have been the biggest PPV in the history of the UFC. So It’s no surprise that UFC president Dana White is working hard to put together a rematch between McGregor and Diaz.
Unfortunately, big fights can often cause big headaches, and White reportedly walked out of negotiations with Diaz in Stockton late last month. Diaz went on a special MMA Hour podcast shortly after and defiantly made it clear that he was done fighting for peanuts.
Now Dana is doing a little tour of sports shows, letting people know how everything is going. Regarding McGregor vs Diaz 2? Not well. “I don’t know if that will ever happen, but I’m trying,” he said on SportsCenter.
He elaborated during a fifteen minute segment with Colin Cowherd (which you can watch above), pinning the difficulties on Nate Diaz. Apparently, for all the difficulties of working with Irish mega-star Conor McGregor, Dana White says “he has never come back and tried to renegotiate a contract, ever. Ever.”
Unfortunately, that’s not the case with Nate Diaz, who has repeatedly signed contract with the UFC, only to turn around and complain about them shortly after.
“Nate, we signed a new deal going into that fight [at UFC 196], then he signed the contract for UFC 200,” White continued. “So then Conor doesn’t show up for UFC 200, and now Nate is trying to blow up the deal. It’s just frustrating.”
As we learned when White pulled McGregor from UFC 200 for failing to show up at a press conference in Vegas, no one man is bigger than the promotion. If Diaz won’t sign on the dotted line, they’ll move on to someone who will.
“People do want to see this fight again,” he said. “And I’m one of those guys who … I want to make the fight that people want to see, and I believe people do want to see this fight. But, people do want to see Conor McGregor vs. Frankie Edgar or Jose Aldo again, too. I’m sure they would want to see him fight Rafael dos Anjos at 155 for that title, so there’s a lot of fights out there for Conor, if we can’t get this Nate fight done.”
With Ronda Rousey now off the UFC’s big New York debut at Madison Square Garden due to knee surgery, the company may be more than happy to wait and let McGregor face the winner of Edgar (who is a New York native) and Aldo. Those two fight for the interim featherweight championship at UFC 200 on July 9.
(Via MMA Fighting)
