And there we have it – UFC 196 will now be Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz. A featherweight champion moving up to take on a lightweight contender at welterweight.
If you didn’t notice, there were three weight divisions included in that opening paragraph. This fight will take place at 170 lbs despite Diaz being a natural 155’er and McGregor being the 145 lb champion (but also a natural 155’er). This was most likely done to make it very easy on both McGregor and Diaz. Anybody coming in on short notice has to worry about one thing – the weight cut. Now that this fight is at 170 lbs (close to both fighters’ walking around weight), they can both enjoy a stress-free couple of weeks.
But I believe there is something more to it. Sources claim that the bout was initially scheduled to be a catchweight at 165 lbs, and it was McGregor who decided to bump it up to 170 lbs. This may have been the first sighting of McGregor’s “mental warfare” that we all know he is so good at. Why would he make things easier for the opponent that he will fight in roughly 10 days? We know McGregor is damn good at cutting weight. This is proven by all his featherweight bouts where he has had to cut 25-30 lbs on average; surely a cut down to 165 would be nothing for McGregor and inconvenient for a short-notice Diaz.
I think this is the first attack of the fight, it’s McGregor making sure Diaz is “comfortable” and doesn’t have any excuses coming into the fight. Not feeling you have any excuses includes added pressure. Sure, Diaz can say he took the fight on short notice, but I don’t think Diaz or McGregor really care about that. Do you? These are two men obsessed with combat (albeit for different reasons), and it’s a contest between two alpha males. This is McGregor establishing himself as the early alpha male in this match up as he’s willing to give his opponent a slight early advantage in order to preserve the purity of the contest. Expect a lot of talk coming from McGregor describing how he is the one making this happen for Diaz, and that he is the superior power in this match up.
Enough armchair psychology – let’s take a brief look at the match up that is Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz.
For the first time in Conor’s UFC career he will be fighting someone taller and longer than him. It’s not by much, but Conor will no longer be able to stand at range and hit his opponent without being worried of counters. With that said, Conor’s movement will likely play a huge factor in this fight. We have seen Diaz adopt more of a traditional boxing style – bladed stance, philly shell arm positioning, heavy lead leg, and very little footwork. McGregor should be able to enter and exit all different ranges fluidly in order to open up his own offense. I’m expecting McGregor to target the body a lot. Diaz will be focused on Conor’s left cross, but because of his stationary positioning, it will leave him open to attacks to the body and legs, or perhaps even takedowns if McGregor obliges.
For Diaz, the one thing he brings into this fight that nobody else before him has is his own bag of mental games. We know McGregor is the king of the flim-flam, but Diaz has some flim-flam of his own. Diaz uses verbal assaults inside and outside the Octagon to rile his opponents up, but he also uses it to boost his own confidence in the cage. We see Diaz resort to taunting while losing a fight, but he also taunts to try and get some momentum back, and then will continue taunting even when he’s far in the lead. If Diaz can pick up on any bit of momentum throughout the bout, look for Diaz to try and accentuate that by planting doubt in Conor’s head via vulgar slurs and teases. That will be very difficult to do though because we know Conor’s mind to be virtually bulletproof.
That being said, Conor has a taunting game of his own, and his is a little more deadly. McGregor will not just drop his hands, or talk to his opponent, but he’ll throw certain techniques with the sole purpose of getting a reaction out of his opponent. McGregor’s hook kick for instance is a technique that can put someone out cold if not reacted to, but it’s also the way McGregor was able to immediately take control of the tempo against Dustin Poirier. Expect some very intricate uses of flim-flam in this bout with Diaz. Again, it’s all about taking control of the fight and establishing himself as the superior male fighter.
It’s hard to really grasp what all we’re going to see in this bout, but I’m willing to bet that it’s going to be beautiful. Both Diaz and McGregor are eerily similar in how they approach opponents. They establish themselves as the alpha, and look to ride momentum all the way through the bout while staying in complete control. They don’t just try and squeak out the win, they want to demolish their opponents and leave no doubt.
We’ve seen McGregor execute this plan flawlessly, and has never really been threatened in the UFC. Chad Mendes, a short notice opponent, was able to put McGregor in some uncomfortable positions, but as we saw, Conor doesn’t panic when put in duress. Instead, he stays calm, waits for his opportune moment, and takes it. This makes me think that even if Diaz can capture some form of momentum, he’s not going to be able to do anything with it, and McGregor will likely steal it right back. Diaz on the other hand has definitely been on the wrong side of contests. Most of the time it’s against a superior grappler who can take him down and smother him, but both Josh Thomson and Rafael dos Anjos were able to be very successful standing and trading with him. Thomson was able to land the high kick as Diaz was leaning into it while Rafael chopped down his lead leg.
I’m hesitant to give any sort of prediction on Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz, but my initial thought is to definitely go with McGregor here. I believe his ability to move in and out of range against a relatively stationary opponent will give him such an advantage when it comes to opening up. I also think McGregor will look to target the long, soft torso of Diaz. Nate is relatively limited in his offense, but is still dangerous – especially if he can somehow tag McGregor, and then start taunting and spreading doubt throughout the Irishman’s head. But he’s going to need to get Conor’s respect in order to do anything. Diaz is the most dangerous when he has his opponent biting down, trading shots with him – I just don’t see that ever happening between these two.
One aspect of the fight that I didn’t really touch on is Diaz’s Brazilian jiu-jitsu game. It’s high level, but you have to think that McGregor has tightened up his ground skills in anticipation for the dos Anjos fight. I don’t expect we will see much ground work from either man. Instead, look for both men to put on an entertaining, exciting bout for as long as it lasts.
This will be chaos. It will be war between two alphas who’s games are based around being in control of the fight. McGregor has the movement, but Diaz has the length. McGregor is much more versatile, but Diaz is meat-and-potatoes boxing. It’s a very intriguing match up and I can’t wait for Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz.
Want to give your comments about this article? You can either leave them here or you can join us on the Get More Sports Forum and talk about this article and many more! Brag about your favorite team, argue about an athlete’s performances or tell us about a game you saw. Join a new community of sports fans who live and breathe sports and sports entertainment. It’s free! Join now!
