Nate Diaz says he couldn't get UFC 205 tickets, 'not begging' for third Conor McGregor fight

Nate Diaz is certainly open to a third fight with Conor McGregor, but he said he’s not going to be begging for it.

Diaz, in fact, said it probably wouldn’t do much good since most of his requests go unfulfilled anyway.

Take, for instance, this past weekend’s UFC 205 event. Diaz said he couldn’t get tickets from the UFC to attend the blockbuster pay-per-view event at Madison Square Garden Arena in New York City. Instead, he and brother/fellow UFC fighter Nick Diaz scored some club seats from a friend when, according to Nate Diaz, UFC President Dana White said there wasn’t any more room left at the sold-out event.

Still, after featherweight champion McGregor (21-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) knocked out lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez (28-5 MMA, 3-2 UFC) to become a two-division champ, a lot of eyes turned to Diaz (19-11 MMA, 14-9 UFC), who could offer little more than a shrug.

“I thought the fight would go exactly as it went,” Diaz said in an with ESPN.com‘s Brett Okamoto. “As soon as the fight’s over, I see like a hundred people just turn around and stare at me. I’m like, ‘Yo, what do you want me to do?’

“The UFC, they didn’t even want to give me tickets to this fight. I think they just wanted to put out this picture of him with the belts and be the greatest thing that ever happened – and then wanted to kind of like keep me out of the mix and hide me out from the whole thing.

“It might’ve been in his contract: ‘Don’t let Nate Diaz in here.'”

Following UFC 205, the obvious question was simple: What’s next for McGregor, who now rules two divisions? Diaz, who went 1-1 in a pair of high-profile welterweight bouts against McGregor earlier this year (and is the only man to defeat McGregor in the UFC), is an option, as are the likes of Jose Aldo, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Tony Ferguson and even welterweight champ Tyron Woodley.

But after fighting McGregor in two of the biggest PPV events of all-time, doesn’t Diaz want a third?

“Of course,” said Diaz, who briefly crashed McGregor’s post-UFC 205 victory party. “If I want to do anything, that’s what I want – a third fight.”

But, he said. “I’m not begging for no fight. I don’t need to fight anybody. I don’t need to do this interview. I’ve been blowing up all week (with interview requests).”

Would the organization book it, though? White was noncommittal about McGregor’s future after the event, and McGregor suggested a break could be in order (watch his full post-fight interview above). Diaz, though, doesn’t think officials are in a hurry to book a third meeting with McGregor.

“The UFC knows that’s a bad idea for him too,” he said. ” … Congratulations to Conor. He did a great job, got the two belts.

“Me and him, we know what happened in the last two fights. That ‘greatest of all-time’ stuff, though, needs to come to an end because I don’t remember him being the greatest of all-time while getting worked in (our) last two fights.”

For more on UFC 205, check out the UFC Events section of the site.