Conor McGregor has plenty of options following his landmark victory at UFC 205, including Khabib Nurmagomedov and José Aldo, however, former foe Nate Diaz insists he wants a trilogy fight with ‘Notorious’ and won’t return to the Octagon until the fight is on the table.
Nate joined older brother Nick in New York for UFC 205 fight week, yet the pair kept a relatively low profile. Now that the dust has settled on the UFC’s debut event in Madison Square Garden, Diaz spoke to ESPN and gave his thoughts McGregor’s dominant performance over Eddie Alvarez.
“I thought the fight would go exactly as it went,” Diaz said. “As soon as the fight’s over, I see like a 100 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.”
Diaz feels there may have even been a conspiracy to keep him out of the building, but regardless of what happened in NYC, as far as he is concerned the only fight that will bring him back is the trilogy bout with McGregor.
“It might’ve been in his contract, ‘Don’t let Nate Diaz in here’,” Diaz stated. “If I want to do anything, that’s what I want – a third fight. The UFC knows that’s a bad idea for him too. Congratulations to Conor. He did a great job, got the two belts.”
With McGregor claiming the UFC lightweight championship, adding that to his existing featherweight strap, many believe he should be labeled the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Some have even gone as far as to even claim the brash Irishman as the greatest of all time. Naturally, Diaz disagrees.
“Me and him, we know what happened in the last two fights,” adds Diaz. “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.”
