On this day in 2016, Conor McGregor met Nate Diaz in one of the most-watched rematches in UFC pay-per-view history.
McGregor and Diaz first met five months earlier in the UFC 196 headliner. Despite coming in on short notice to replace an injured Rafael dos Anjos, the ‘Stockton Samurai’ shocked the world with a second-round submission victory over the Irish megastar.
It was the first loss of McGregor’s career inside the Octagon.
Five months later, they would run it back at T-Mobile Arena in what would become one of the UFC’s biggest events of all time. This time around McGregor would come out on top, scoring a majority decision via two 48-47 scorecards while a third judge ruled the fight a 47-47 draw.
With 1.65 million buys, UFC 202 was the most-bought PPV card in UFC history, up to that point. Two years later, ‘Mystic Mac’ broke the record once again with his UFC 229 clash against Khabib Nurmagomedov — the first and only UFC pay-per-view to eclipse two million buys.
As it stands, his sequel with Diaz is still the third-highest-grossing PPV of all time, sitting only behind UFC 229 and McGregor’s trilogy bout with Dustin Poirier at UFC 264.
Despite taking separate career paths, Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz remain adamant that their trilogy fight will happen
With the series deadlocked at 1-1, everyone expected a trilogy fight between Diaz and the then-featherweight champion to be booked in short order. Eight years later, we’re still waiting.
Following their duology, McGregor and Diaz went down separate paths. McGregor’s next fight saw him score a third-round TKO against Eddie Alvarez to claim the lightweight championship, making him the promotion’s first-ever simultaneous two-division titleholder.
As for Diaz, the Stockton, CA native only fought four more times under the UFC banner, going 2-2 including wins over Anthony ‘Showtime’ Pettis and Tony Ferguson. Diaz exited the UFC in September 2022 with plans to pursue a career in boxing. Since then, he’s stepped inside the squared circle twice, dropping a unanimous decision to Jake Paul before landing a majority decision against BMF rival Jorge Masvidal a year later.
Despite no longer being signed by the UFC, Nate Diaz is confident that he and Conor McGregor will close out their trilogy at some point.
“I 100% guarantee I’m going to fight Conor McGregor again,” Diaz said at a media event to promote his boxing match with Jorge Masvidal.
McGregor has also remained adamant that the threequel will happen, telling Ariel Helwani in an in-studio interview last year, “I’ll get that again. That trilogy will happen at some stage, for sure.”
