Tempers flared at the UFC 202 weigh-in on Friday night, as Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor came perilously close to exchanging blows ahead of their mouth-watering rematch on Saturday.
Diaz brought the exuberant McGregor back down to earth in UFC 196 earlier this year with a sensational second-round victory, but the Irishman is determined to prove that he can still cut it in the welterweight division—and he appeared ready for war in Las Vegas.
However, McGregor came in under the weight limit, at 168 lbs, while Diaz tipped the scales at 170.5 lbs, as JOE’s Darragh Murphy revealed:
168 lbs for Conor McGregor ahead of #UFC202 while Diaz comes in at 170.5 lbs.
— Darragh Murphy (@DarrMurphy) August 19, 2016
The Notorious struggled to cope with Diaz’s extra weight and power in the pair’s March bout, although UFC 202’s main event remains too close to call.
Either way, neither fighter was backing down at Friday’s weigh-in, as McGregor and Diaz had to be physically separated on a heavily policed T-Mobile Arena stage.
Journalist Chamatkar Sandhu revealed the moment the duo locked horns:
Here's the video of Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor facing off at the UFC 202 weigh ins. pic.twitter.com/2PCyTSqY3n
— Chamatkar Sandhu (@SandhuMMA) August 19, 2016
McGregor wouldn’t be McGregor if he didn’t talk the talk, and he was hitting Diaz with both barrels at the weigh-in.
Keen to put the March defeat behind him, The Notorious sent out a warning to Diaz and his team ahead of the rematch, as reported by Peter Carroll of MailOnline:
“He should have killed me while he had the chance. Now I'm back and I'm going to kill you and your whole f--king team.”
Whether or not McGregor can, in fact, walk the walk is very much up for debate. The Irishman will look to land a trademark left-handed blow to end Diaz’s challenge, yet he needs to be patient in his bid to do so.
He’ll need to vary his attack and exercise his kicking game to try to grind his American counterpart down, before freeing up a chance to get swinging.
As Diaz proved in UFC 196, though, he’s more than capable of coping with McGregor’s attack.
A master of jiu-jitsu, Diaz has a big advantage on the floor, and his extra, more natural weight makes another submission victory a real possibility.
The man himself seems to think he can get the better of McGregor again, too, as he responded to his opponent’s jibes with a similarly ominous warning, via Carroll:
“I train always hard to kill. He’s already dead from the last time. This is a new fight so it's kill or be killed again.”
Diaz defeated McGregor at UFC 196 despite being called to the headline fight on short notice, but he’s had a lot more time to prepare this time around, and that much will have McGregor fans worried.
Still, The Notorious’ lethal reputation exists for a reason. He’s more of an all-round athlete than Diaz and much faster than his larger opponent; it’s all a case of whether or not he can get his tactics right and grind the American down.
