When Nate Diaz used his post-fight interview to call out Conor McGregor at UFC on Fox 17, it felt like a long shot that the fight would happen, let alone see Diaz win.
Yet that’s the reality we live in. Diaz brought a halt to the McGregor hype train with a second-round submission win over The Notorious in the main event at UFC 196 on Saturday.
MMAjunkie tweeted the official result:
The fight was not short on action from the get-go. McGregor was able to land solid combinations as he looked like the quicker fighter, but Diaz hung in the pocket and landed some strikes of his own. The first frame became especially interesting when Diaz scored a takedown but was swept by the Irishman.
Although Mystic Mac predicted he would stop Diaz in the first round, the fight saw a second stanza as the durable Diaz was still standing after five minutes.
The second verse was nothing like the first. McGregor became looser with his striking at the expense of his defense, and the younger Diaz brother was able to shake his opponent with good combinations of his own.
Ultimately, Diaz was able to get the fight to the ground again and took McGregor’s back. From there, he sunk in the choke and derailed the McGregor hype train.
As ESPN Stats & Info noted, poor submission defense has been the reason behind all three of McGregor’s MMA losses:
This was a shocking result. According to Odds Shark, McGregor was a 1-4 favorite to beat the Stockton, California, native.
The fact that Diaz was able to upset McGregor was impressive in itself. The fact that he did it as a short-notice replacement for lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos made it the most impressive win of his career.
Even stepping up on short notice, Diaz hinted that he might have been preparing for a matchup with the featherweight champ, per MMA Fighting:
There’s no other way. It’s no McGregor show. It’s a fight that needed to happen. I’m the biggest fight. They knew they were fighting me already. They were already training for me. They knew what’s up. But hey, don’t trip. Maybe I’ll plot back. They were plotting on me, I might have been plotting back too. You never know.
For McGregor, this was a huge blow. The Notorious has made no qualms about wanting to be a fighter who can succeed in multiple weight classes. Saturday’s loss put a major damper on those plans. Diaz isn’t a true welterweight, as his last eight fights had been contested at lightweight.
Ultimately, the UFC might have been the biggest loser of the fight. Despite the short-notice replacement, the company expected the card to bring in one of the highest gates in UFC history, per Ariel Helwani of MMA Fighting:
That was the McGregor effect.
Now, it’s unclear how big of a commodity McGregor will be.
He still has value, of course. He’s the featherweight champion. A slip-up in a weight class 25 pounds heavier than his own doesn’t mean he’s done as a top-tier fighter.
However, Bleacher Report’s Jeremy Botter reported that those close to McGregor believe he will never fight at 145 pounds again, as the weight cut has become too difficult.
Will the UFC still allow him to challenge for the lightweight belt against Dos Anjos? Will people still flock to see if McGregor can back up his talk? Or is he now the fighter who cried multidivision champ?
Those questions have now replaced questions about how great McGregor could be.
Perhaps the most important question after UFC 196 is this: Is Nate Diaz finally prepared to make good on a UFC title shot?
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