Nate Diaz is once again teasing a long-awaited trilogy bout with Irish megastar Conor McGregor.
It’s been more than seven years since Diaz and McGregor lit up the Octagon with the second in a pair of entertaining clashes that produced two of the highest-grossing pay-per-views in the UFC’s 30+ year history. Since then, fight fans have been clamoring for a rubber match between the two, but thus far, the promotion has failed to pull the trigger.
All hope appeared to be lost when the ‘Stockton Samurai’ walked away from the company he called home for 15 years to test out his skills in the squared circle. However, that has not stopped Diaz from calling out the former two-division titleholder on occasion in hopes of producing a lucrative third meeting between the two.
Taking to social media, Diaz is once again shooting his shot by sharing an image from one of the duo’s encounters in the Octagon. “Real war,” he wrote in the caption on X.
Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz first met in a welterweight bout at UFC 196 in March 2016. The TUF alumnus scored a second-round submission, handing the Irishman his first loss inside the Octagon. The pair were originally scheduled to run it back at UFC 200, but the bout was pulled after McGregor failed to fulfill media obligations related to the fight.
The sequel was pushed back to UFC 202 where McGregor evened the series with a victory via majority decision (48-47, 47-47, and 48-47).
Conor McGregor has One win in last seven years
Three months later, McGregor went on to capture the lightweight title with a second-round KO of Eddie Alvarez to become a simultaneous two-division champion. It’s been pretty much all downhill for McGregor as far as wins and losses go ever since. He cashed in on a co-promoted boxing match with Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather in 2017, losing in the 10th round via TKO. He has earned just one victory in the UFC over the last seven years, that coming against a past-his-prime ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone in 2020.
His last Octagon appearance came nearly four years ago when he suffered a broken leg during the opening round of a trilogy fight with Dustin Poirier and UFC 264.
On New Year’s Day, McGregor announced that he would make his return on June 29 for a middleweight clash with former Bellator MMA champion ‘Iron’ Michael Chandler, though the UFC has not made the announcement official.