UFC 202’s pre-fight buildup went into overdrive with a wacky press conference that was off-kilter from the beginning. Conor McGregor was late to the stage, claimed it started 30 minutes later than scheduled, and blamed his poor punctuality on Las Vegas traffic. He arrived late, Nate Diaz chose to leave early, and after some obscenities were exchanged, Nate Diaz threw a water bottle, and he and the rest of Team Diaz were in a fully-fledged bottle throwing war with McGregor, who hurled some Monster Energy cans. The less said about Jake Shields’ Starbucks cup throw, the better.
Submission Radio caught up with Richard Perez, Diaz’s boxing coach, about his thoughts on the actual UFC 202 main event, as well as today’s press conference madness. Here are a couple of quotes (also transcribed via Sub Radio) from the video, which you can watch at the top of the page.
Thoughts on McGregor being late to the press conference
“I think he did that just to do it, you know, to try and get on Nathan’s nerves - but it didn’t happen. What happened was, he came in late all cocky, started talking. So Nathan said, okay, he came late, I’m cutting, I’m booking. So McGregor didn’t like it and was speechless and caught him off guard and that made him mad.”
If Nate or anybody in the team was angry about the situation
“No, I thought he did the right thing, just to walk out and got on McGregor’s nerves. He didn’t like it. He didn’t know how to handle it. So acted like a little kid and started throwing bottles - which he shouldn’t have, but Nathan got to him.”
Thoughts on Trilogy possibility if Nate beats McGregor again
“No. McGregor won’t do it. He won’t do it. No way. He’s just saying that right now because he’s in front of the media. He has to say something positive about himself, but it’s not gonna happen.”
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