The highly anticipated UFC 202 welterweight main event between Nate Diaz and ‘The Notorious’ Conor McGregor set for August 20 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas is just a little under three weeks away, and Diaz is wasting no time telling people what he thinks the promotion wants to happen on fight night.
Nate Diaz says the UFC is trying to ‘weed him out’
“When [the rematch] first got booked, I was like, ‘Man, they want to get me right back in there, try to win this back and weed me out again.’ That’s how I felt,” Diaz said in a recent interview with Megan Olivi on UFC Fight Pass.
“I was like, ‘Can I just sit back for eight months and soak up some popularity and some exposure, go on vacation and do what I’ve got to do?’ They were like, ‘We want this’, and I’m like, ‘Why so quick?’”
Prior to their first bout at UFC 196, McGregor was the fastest rising star in MMA, until Diaz replaced the injured Rafael Dos Anjos to accept a bout against the Irishman on two weeks’ notice. Not a lot of people gave Diaz a shot in the dark at beating McGregor but he was able to pull off one of the most thrilling upsets in UFC history.
Diaz feels this seriously derailed McGregor’s hype train and that the UFC was none too happy about it, hence the immediate rematch which Diaz felt compelled to accept.
“But whatever. Then the deal got done. That payday and this payday in such a short amount of time, you can’t pass that up, so let’s do it. But I felt like these guys want to weed me right back out, hoping that I lose,” said Diaz.
“They better hope I lose because if I win this one, I’m really taking over.”
If Diaz can trump McGregor for the second time in a row, that would make it three straight wins for Diaz against two really high-caliber opponents. A win puts him in the best spot in his career and will prove that his first triumph over the UFC featherweight champion was certainly no fluke.
