Blockbuster news arrived last night when UFC president Dana White announced that popular bad boy Nate Diaz would be taking on featherweight champion Conor McGregor in the main event of March 5’s UFC 196 after his original opponent, lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos, was forced out with a broken foot. It’s an impromptu main event
Blockbuster news arrived last night when UFC president Dana White announced that popular bad boy Nate Diaz would be taking on featherweight champion Conor McGregor in the main event of March 5’s UFC 196 after his original opponent, lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos, was forced out with a broken foot.
It’s an impromptu main event that will go down at welterweight of all places, but regardless of the weight class, it promises to be a massive affair with quite the possibly the best short notice trash talk buildup in UFC history.
To get the ball rolling on the festivities, the UFC is hosting a pre-fight press conference shortly at 4 p.m. EST. Watch all of the sure-to-be hilarious antics right here:
The betting odds are in for the new UFC 196 main event, and as expected, the champion opened up as a betting favorite over his short-notice replacement opponent.
UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor opened up as a near four-to-one favorite over…
The betting odds are in for the new UFC 196 main event, and as expected, the champion opened up as a betting favorite over his short-notice replacement opponent.
UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor opened up as a near four-to-one favorite over UFC Lightweight contender Nate Diaz, who will now be fighting McGregor in the UFC 196 main event after UFC Lightweight Champion Rafael dos Anjos pulled out of the fight with a broken foot.
Bovada oddsmaker Jimmy Shapiro set McGregor as a -350 favorite over the +260 underdog. What this means is a $350 bet on McGregor will net you $100 if he wins, while a straight $100 bet on Diaz will earn you $260 if he pulls off the upset.
UFC 196: McGregor vs. Diaz takes place next Saturday night, March 5th, from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
But wouldn’t you know it, it seems that Diaz had a slight change of heart, and has now agreed to face McGregor at UFC 196 in a five round main event.
If you’ll excuse us for a moment….
The fight, which was first reported by Fox Sports and confirmed by Ariel Helwani shortly thereafter, will be a non-title fight contested at 170 pounds, marking the featherweight champion’s first trip up to the division. Diaz, meanwhile, hasn’t competed at welterweight since stringing together two stoppage victories over Rory Markham and Marcus Davis alongside a pair of decision losses to Dong Hyun Kim and Rory MacDonald between 2010 and 2011.
This…is an incredible, insane fight to put it simply, as well as the best possible scenario fans could have hoped for following the removal of Dos Anjos from the card. In McGregor vs. Diaz, you have two fighters who are, as Mike Goldberg would put it, virtually identical in a lot of ways. Both guys are tried-and-true finishers who compete at an absolutely insane pace and bring a diverse, punishing arsenal of strikes to the cage. It may not be the fight we were expecting, and it may be happening on two weeks notice, but McGregor vs. Diaz has “Fight of the Year” implications written all over it.
Not to mention, uhhh, this:
The amount of shit-talking that will take place during the fight alone is worth the price of the pay-per-view. Speaking of which, the UFC has scheduled a press conference for the two to face off for the first time, which will be broadcast at 4 p.m. EST today on UFC.com.
Former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar is not happy.
After UFC president Dana White came out Tuesday and claimed that Edgar turned down a bout with Conor McGregor for UFC 196, “The Answer” wants to come clean.
In an interview with MMAFighting.com, Edgar explained what happened and why he was unable to accept the fight, adding that he is “even more pissed that Dana’s insinuating that I ‘refused’ to take this fight, which is bullshit.”
“I got a call from Ali (Abdel-Aziz, his manager) saying that Rafael dos Anjos got hurt, and (the UFC) had texted him, ‘will Frankie fight him at 155?’ And, I’ve been hurt for the past four weeks,” Edgar said. “I’m pissed off for a couple of reasons. I’m pissed off that I’ve got this opportunity slip through again. I’m sitting here, I’m the one who’s been trying to fight this guy for months now. I’m flying myself to Vegas on my own dime to lobby to get a fight with this guy and now here comes the opportunity, and I’m hurt and I can’t take it. I haven’t done anything in four weeks. I didn’t just pull my groin, I tore it. I sent Dana and everyone in the UFC my MRI.”
Edgar, who is coming off a first round victory over Chad Mendes, stated that he was offered a fight at UFC 189 on 15 days notice that he accepted, but “still didn’t get.”
“I have a feeling that if I had said ‘yes,’ that fight still would have went to Nate Diaz,” he said. “I think Nate Diaz was the fight they were trying to make since the beginning. Now Dana wants to go around saying that I ‘refused’ to take this fight and I don’t know if he’s going to try to use it against me in the future.”
Former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar is not happy.
After UFC president Dana White came out Tuesday and claimed that Edgar turned down a bout with Conor McGregor for UFC 196, “The Answer” wants to come clean.
In an interview with MMAFighting.com, Edgar explained what happened and why he was unable to accept the fight, adding that he is “even more pissed that Dana’s insinuating that I ‘refused’ to take this fight, which is bullshit.”
“I got a call from Ali (Abdel-Aziz, his manager) saying that Rafael dos Anjos got hurt, and (the UFC) had texted him, ‘will Frankie fight him at 155?’ And, I’ve been hurt for the past four weeks,” Edgar said. “I’m pissed off for a couple of reasons. I’m pissed off that I’ve got this opportunity slip through again. I’m sitting here, I’m the one who’s been trying to fight this guy for months now. I’m flying myself to Vegas on my own dime to lobby to get a fight with this guy and now here comes the opportunity, and I’m hurt and I can’t take it. I haven’t done anything in four weeks. I didn’t just pull my groin, I tore it. I sent Dana and everyone in the UFC my MRI.”
Edgar, who is coming off a first round victory over Chad Mendes, stated that he was offered a fight at UFC 189 on 15 days notice that he accepted, but “still didn’t get.”
“I have a feeling that if I had said ‘yes,’ that fight still would have went to Nate Diaz,” he said. “I think Nate Diaz was the fight they were trying to make since the beginning. Now Dana wants to go around saying that I ‘refused’ to take this fight and I don’t know if he’s going to try to use it against me in the future.”
Wow, they say Conor McGregor is the king of trash talk, wait until you get a load of this guy. We know ‘The Notorious’ can get under people’s skin, but damn… UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor will no longer be facing the lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 196, after the Brazilian broke his
Wow, they say Conor McGregor is the king of trash talk, wait until you get a load of this guy. We know ‘The Notorious’ can get under people’s skin, but damn…
UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor will no longer be facing the lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 196, after the Brazilian broke his foot in training. This opened the door to a day of speculation about McGregor’s replacement opponent, before Nate Diaz was finally booked in at welterweight, but it’s once again opened the door to even more discussions about the Irish star.
Mixed martial arts promotion has taken a very different form in the UFC lately thanks to McGregor, but he still uses the same old formula as guys like Tito Ortiz utilized to help promote fights. The difference now is that a lot of money can be put behind the selling of big names, but this in turn mounts the pressure on the athlete to perform. You only need to reference Ronda Rousey’s fall from grace to verify that statement.
One fighter that is seriously unimpressed by McGregor is lightweight contender Tony Ferguson. As much as ‘The Notorious’ likes to run his mouth to help promote fights, he also uses it as a great tool to frustrate opponents. For ‘El Cucuy’ though, this is a scumbag move.
Check out what the streaking Ferguson told our good friends over at Submission Radiothis week:
Tony Ferguson on ‘Little B*tch’ McGregor: “I’ll give him his Red Panty night if he really f**king wants it”
“This dude claims to be a master of movement but he’s a turtle on his back. Chad Mendes, if he had any kind of conditioning or patience, he would have passed the guard and pulled it off. I see McGregor, he can’t learn wrestling overnight. I see his movement, he looks predictable. But that’s not the fight I have. Khabib Nurmagomedov, this 22-0 guy is gonna go down. 22-1 is what his record is going to be after this, and then every single fighter after this when I put that picture up with his face all cut up from my elbows, nobody’s gonna want to sign on the dotted line. I’ll probably have a nice little vacation.”
Although he’s booked in to face Khabib Nurmagomedov in the undefeated wrestler’s return to the octagon, Tony Ferguson clearly has a bee in his bonnet about Conor McGregor. He was then asked if McGregor’s win over Aldo was impressive. Here’s how he answered….
UFC Officials have confirmed that Conor McGregor (19-2) will be facing Nate Diaz (18-10) at UFC 196. Earlier today, Rafael Dos Anjos (25-7) had to pull out of the fight due to a broken foot. Many have speculated throughout the day that Nate Diaz would face McGregor, so the matchup is not much of a surprise.
However, the biggest surprise of the announcement is that the fight will take place at 170 pounds. “The Notorious” has been known to be physically bigger when he fought at 145 pounds, but the big jump to 170 pounds to face Nate Diaz is unprecedented. The Stockton native has fought at both 155 and 170 pound weight classes. Throughout the day, there were reports that negotiations were not going well in terms of what weight the two fighters would compete at. But now it seems that the fight is on and both have agreed at welterweight.
Both Diaz and McGregor have some history in the past. Diaz called out McGregor in his post-fight interview after his unanimous decision victory over Michael Johnson in December.
This is a stylistically entertaining matchup since both fighters are known for their incredible standup. Nate Diaz has some of the top boxing skills in MMA. The Irishman has shown fluidity of mixing punches and kicks. This will be the first time in McGregor’s UFC career that he will be facing someone with a longer reach than him. Diaz has a 76-inch reach compared to McGregor’s 74-inch reach.
The UFC officially announced the bout on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/ufc/status/702344710673735680
UFC Officials have confirmed that Conor McGregor (19-2) will be facing Nate Diaz (18-10) at UFC 196. Earlier today, Rafael Dos Anjos (25-7) had to pull out of the fight due to a broken foot. Many have speculated throughout the day that Nate Diaz would face McGregor, so the matchup is not much of a surprise.
However, the biggest surprise of the announcement is that the fight will take place at 170 pounds. “The Notorious” has been known to be physically bigger when he fought at 145 pounds, but the big jump to 170 pounds to face Nate Diaz is unprecedented. The Stockton native has fought at both 155 and 170 pound weight classes. Throughout the day, there were reports that negotiations were not going well in terms of what weight the two fighters would compete at. But now it seems that the fight is on and both have agreed at welterweight.
Both Diaz and McGregor have some history in the past. Diaz called out McGregor in his post-fight interview after his unanimous decision victory over Michael Johnson in December.
This is a stylistically entertaining matchup since both fighters are known for their incredible standup. Nate Diaz has some of the top boxing skills in MMA. The Irishman has shown fluidity of mixing punches and kicks. This will be the first time in McGregor’s UFC career that he will be facing someone with a longer reach than him. Diaz has a 76-inch reach compared to McGregor’s 74-inch reach.
