While Conor McGregor was overloading on eggs and soldiers, Nate Diaz was overloading on yachts and tequila in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The former lightweight title contender stepped in to face McGregor on just over a week’s notice at UFC 196, following Rafael Dos Anjos’ removal from the card due to injury. What followed became a welterweight bout for the ages, with McGregor starting strong, but fading quickly toward a submission stoppage in the second round.
Since then, much has been made of Conor’s preparation for their upcoming rematch at UFC 202. Has he been working on his BJJ? Has his boxing improved with new sparring partners? Has he cut back on the breakfasts?
Boxing coach Richard Perez, who trains Diaz, thinks these are the wrong questions to ask. In a recent interview with Submission Radio he put the focus back where he thinks it really belongs: How’s Nate doing?
“See, people are talking about McGregor, but what about Nathan?” Perez queried. “He’s got a training camp too, so why are they making McGregor look like he’s going to be better when he already got whooped in eight days? They can’t see that Nathan is going to be in better shape, you know, have better tools? No, that’s wrong. But that’s the media, that’s what they do.”
“The way I see it is that Nathan is going to get the win. I feel that Nathan’s going to be better and I feel that McGregor is going to be in trouble. Because from eight days to a full training camp is totally different from Nathan. He’s going to come out a lot sharper, faster, quicker and he’s going to have more energy. McGregor’s going to have the same thing he had the last time. He trained hard for the last fight before Dos Anjos got hurt, so he was already training. No matter if it was a tall guy, short guy, he was still training to fight. Nathan wasn’t. So that tells you a lot. That tells me a lot. He’s fighting a guy that’s a lot better than him, a lot stronger than him. So that’s what I don’t understand why people are favouring McGregor.”
Perez also talked about Nick Diaz’s comments on getting “drugged” for his GSP title fight, Nate’s spot on Conan O’Brien and the wonky odds that have Conor McGregor entering as the favorite. So, check the whole thing out.
In the mean time, Nate Diaz will continue his full camp preparations for the main event of UFC 202 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The fights go down on August 20th, where Diaz will rematch McGregor in a welterweight contest. Former light heavyweight contenders Anthony Johnson and Glover Teixeira are set to face off in the co-main event.
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