Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz and the strangely compelling fight about nothing

So there they were, Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz, sitting at a makeshift dais for a makeshift press conference at an overcrowded UFC Gym in Torrance, Calif., having a spirited argument about who did and did not “give a (expletive).”

It was good theater. Good hype, too. And, if we’re being honest, it represented exactly the sort of thing we’d all gathered to see, which also happens to be the sort of thing that makes this otherwise nonsensical fight gripping entertainment.

I found myself thinking about this once the conversation centered on the topic of McGregor’s UFC featherweight title. The champ kept fiddling with his belt, trying to make it sit up nice and pretty in front of him, all while Diaz (18-10 MMA, 13-8 UFC) insisted that he didn’t care about it. McGregor (19-2 MMA, 7-0 UFC) replied that he didn’t care either (I’m paraphrasing here), and suddenly we had ourselves an odd point of both agreement and contention. The more I thought about it, the weirder it seemed.

For one thing, the belt literally doesn’t matter here. It’s the featherweight title, and this is essentially a lightweight fight being contested at welterweight. It’s also, for a star the magnitude of McGregor, little more than an accessory. He doesn’t need it. It’s just cool to have something sparkly in the pictures, I guess.

That tells you pretty much all you need to know about the state of McGregor’s career. Other fighters, like, say, Rafael dos Anjos or even Robbie Lawler? Their UFC belts are essential to the pre-fight sales proposition. The belts remind you why you’re watching.

But McGregor’s fights, including Saturday’s pay-per-view headliner at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena, are different. We all know what’s at stake without the physical reminder. He is the title, because we all know that a win over him is a potential career-changer – and even a loss is a great chance to get paid.

Think of it as the Conor McGregor Championship, which he carries with him wherever he goes. He’s been talking about the violent accumulation of great riches since the moment he burst onto the UFC scene, and now he’s gone from the one seeking financial opportunity to the one granting it.

Why else do you think so many fighters in so many different weight classes volunteered to fight him as soon as dos Anjos pulled out with an injury? They see McGregor as a walking bank vault. It’s a perception he created for himself, definitely on purpose, and which he now seems to delight in.

But when you match him up against Diaz in a fight that’s too fun to need any further justification, there’s something else at stake too. Maybe it’s the Don’t Give An F Championship. It’s two guys who talk a lot and back it up every chance they get, clashing in a fight that is almost aggressively meaningless outside of its sheer entertainment value for us and its potential financial value for them.

This is a fight about nothing, and that’s awesome. It’s a featherweight against a lightweight at welterweight, and it sells itself even as the participants are arguing over who cares less.

There’s a weird anti-narrative to the whole thing, which is refreshing in a sport where we’re constantly asked to believe that the next fight is truly about determining pound-for-pound greatness or the realization of championship dreams.

This isn’t that. This is just fun. It’s for money, definitely. For respect, possibly. Maybe even to determine once and for all who doesn’t give an F. And somehow, we’re the ones who end up really caring.

For more on UFC 196, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.