Diaz ‘not doing $#!^’ until the rematch

The great Nate Diaz conducted a lively media scrum after losing a narrow decision to Conor McGregor at UFC 202 on Saturday night.

In 2014, Diaz had been so upset over the disparity between his income and that of teammate Gil Melendez that he refused to fight, and was removed from the UFC rankings for a period. Then he accepted a fight with Conor McGregor on 11 days notice, and according to UFC president Dana White, made over $2,000,000.

Diaz’s next fight was the rematch, and for that he made a guaranteed $2,000,000, win, lose, or draw. Plus Diaz presumably made a cut of what is believed will be the biggest pay per view of all time. He also made $50,000 for a Fight of the Night bonus.

The $50,000 seems like a pittance in comparison to the millions, but it about the same as Diaz made in disclosed, contracted purses in the two fights before McGregor, combined. Diaz fought Rafael Dos Anjos at 20/20 disclosed, lost, and was fined $4,000 for missing weight, so made $16,000. Next fight he made $40,000 beating Michael Johnson.

So Nate Diaz made over $2,000,000 for the first fight with McGregor, and it broke the PPV record. And he made way, way more than $2,000,000 for the rematch, and it will apparently set a new record. So the only intelligent thing to do is wait for the trilogy fight.

“I’m not doing s–t until we go for round three,” said Diaz post fight, as transcribed by MMA Fighting’s Shaun Al-Shatti on Twitter. “You won’t see me until then.”

He doesn’t think he lost the second fight, either.

“I didn’t think for a second that I lost at the end of the fight,” said Diaz, as transcribed by Marc Raimondi for MMA Fighting. “I thought I won the fight, at least from round two since we’re judging by rounds.”

“I think he did a lot of running away that in the old days or in a real fight I think you’d get pointed for it. Or in boxing you’d get pointed for it. So I think they should have taken a point from him for running and I think I would have brought the action it would have been less of a fight. I didn’t think I lost for a second, until it was over. Until they said so.”

“It was just like I suspected. He was gonna slow down and I was gonna speed up. I was letting him get his little things off and make him trying to do some stuff. I stepped on the gas in the third a little more than earlier.”

“He prepared to go the distance. He said he was gonna come in and come forward and walk me down and put his same pressure and do the same things as usual. I thought that it was a little strategy to make me think that. I thought he was gonna spread it out a little and he did, he spread it out a little.”

“He’s going to the hospital, I think,” Diaz said, “And I’m going to the after party.”

McGregor’s coach John Kavanagh recently detailed that for the first time, the camp trained specifically for a fighter – Diaz. Steps included bringing in BJJ expert Dillon Danis to mimic Diaz’s grappling game, and boxer Connor Wallace to mimic Diaz’s striking.

“He followed the leader,” said Diaz. “He hired all these people now for jobs. But who taught you how to do that? Your sensei here, man.”