After Conor McGregor won the lightweight championship at UFC 205, becoming the first fighter to ever hold two UFC belts at the same time, the “who will he fight next?” speculation machine naturally kicked into high gear.
Maybe the Irishman would fight Khabib Nurmagomedov, the 24-0 Russian lightweight who called McGregor out earlier in the evening. Maybe McGregor would fight Tony Ferguson, another extremely impressive lightweight on a nine-fight win streak, or maybe McGregor would finally defend his featherweight belt in a rematch against Jose Aldo.
Nate Diaz watched it all and wondered why he wasn’t the first name on everyone’s lips. After all, Diaz choked McGregor out seven months ago and nearly won the epic rematch in August.
Adding insult to injury, the UFC refused to give Diaz tickets to the McGregor vs. Eddie Alvarez fight at Madison Square Garden so the man from Stockton, Calif., had to rely on friends who gave him a spot in a box high above the Octagon.
Normally, the UFC puts title contenders cage-side so they can mug for the cameras after someone wins a title, thus creating the professional wrestling-style beefs that sell future fights. When McGregor won in the early hours of Sunday morning he jumped on top of the Octagon, a championship belt on each shoulder, and there was nobody in the crowd to oppose him.
Diaz thinks he knows why.
“It’s a little bit unofficial, it’s handed over. Good timing for him and he did everything right and they handed it right to him,” Diaz Diaz told ESPN. “It was funny how I got left out the picture though. He went through the fight like I expected he would, especially against that guy. I thought the fight would go exactly how it went. I figured that. Then as soon as the fight’s over, I see like 100 people just turned around and staring at me like what do you want me to do?”
“The UFC, they didn’t even want to give me tickets to this fight. I think they wanted to just put this picture of him with the belts and it’s the greatest thing that ever happened. They want to kind of like keep me out of the mix and hide me out from the whole thing. It might have been in his contract, ‘don’t let Nate Diaz in here’. I was up in the stands in the seat in the club box. After the fight, everybody’s turning and looking at me. It’s not my call. These guys are hiding me out up here. I think they gave Nick Jonas my seat.”
Whether the UFC is intentionally freezing Diaz out or not, McGregor’s camp is fully aware of his talents and the potential for a trilogy.
“I think the second-best 155-pounder is Nate Diaz,” John Kavanagh, McGregor’s longtime trainer, told MMAFighting.com. “I think Nate would beat either Tony or Khabib … and I think he looked fantastic in both the Conor fights.
“I understand Khabib is the number one contender and it’s probably going to be him, if that’s how the company works. But for me … the Nate fight would interest me greater. If it’s Tony, if it’s Khabib — great. They’re two fantastic fighters. A lot to learn in the preparation for them and both would be extremely interesting fights for me to watch. But I do think Nate would — not comfortably — but would be quite a bit better than either of them.
“I don’t think Nate gets nearly enough credit for how good he is. And I just think with his jiu-jitsu — incredible guard, incredible guillotine, incredible triangles — if the likes of Khabib or Tony was to shoot on him, because they would be getting lit up on the feet, I think he would finish them.”
Diaz, who has fought as a 155-pound lightweight for much of his career, doesn’t seem to care about either Nurmagomedov or Ferguson. He’s got his eye on another huge payday fight with McGregor.
“I know what happened in a fight with me and him the last time,” Diaz said. “He knows what happened and people know what happened.
“People are asking me ‘when are you going to fight No. 3?’ and ‘do you want No. 3?’ and of course if I do anything, that’s what I wanted, the third fight. I’m not begging for no fight. It’s all good with me. I don’t need to fight.”