UFC 196: McGregor vs Diaz

[jimufctna24]

I don't know, I felt McGregor was on top throughout most of the fight. Diaz landed some good shots, but they were outweighed by what McGregor was landing. I got the feeling that if McGregor maintained his advantage for another few rounds (I.E - continued getting the better of the exchanges), Diaz would have been stopped. He was taking a lot of damage, and that cut was nasty.

 

If they rematched at either 155lbs or 170lbs, I think it could go either way. 

 

RDA is king at 155lbs, with Khabib snipping at his heels. They would probably beat McGregor. However, the I think McGregor beats the rest (and so would Diaz for that matter)

[David]

I don't know, I felt McGregor was on top throughout most of the fight. Diaz landed some good shots, but they were outweighed by what McGregor was landing. I got the feeling that if McGregor maintained his advantage for another few rounds (I.E - continued getting the better of the exchanges), Diaz would have been stopped. He was taking a lot of damage, and that cut was nasty.

 

If they rematched at either 155lbs or 170lbs, I think it could go either way. 

 

RDA is king at 155lbs, with Khabib snipping at his heels. They would probably beat McGregor. However, the I think McGregor beats the rest (and so would Diaz for that matter)

 

The thing is Jim, his power didn't carry to 170lbs. He was catching Nate with punches, and aside from the cut over his eye (and both of those brothers bleed like fuck all the time anyway) none of the punches looked to be troubling Diaz.

 

McGregor's a great fighter, but there are weight classes for a reason. I've continually said that 155lbs is his ideal weight. This 170lbs shite isn't going to cut it, and he knows that now. We'll never see him at that weight again, I guarantee it.

[jimufctna24]

I think those punches were troubling Diaz, just not as much as they would smaller men. Overall, I agree. Based on last night, McGregor should not go anywhere near 170lbs again. Lightweight and Featherweight are where he should be at.

[FUM]

Diaz says those punches were hurting in that interview that has been posted. Although he blames that on not having a proper camp.

[David]

I think those punches were troubling Diaz, just not as much as they would smaller men. Overall, I agree. Based on last night, McGregor should not go anywhere near 170lbs again. Lightweight and Featherweight are where he should be at.

 

You think so? I didn't. I've seen Diaz get caught by punches before by guys who are bigger and hit harder than McGregor. The cut above the eye gave him some trouble, but apart from that? I didn't see anything really.

[d-d-d-dAz]

I'm with David. They might have hurt, sure, but he never, ever looked in danger of being stopped.

 

And Conor was fucking swinging for the first row. He wouldn't have kept that up for 5 rounds. By the second round, McGregor was a busted flush and Diaz was just warming up, boxing his head off and forcing him to make a silly mistake.

 

I'm a big Conor fan, but he got showed up not just by Nate's height and frame, but also by his boxing and his fight smarts,

 

In a way, with more fancy spins and kicks, he became one of those awful heavyweights who once he didn't KO him in the first round, he had few ideas. And, credit to Nate, Conor's taunts didn't knock him off his gameplan once. He just stayed at length, peppered him with high volume and then took his opportunity.

[ColinBollocks]

I feared this was the case when this fight was announced, but McGregor overreached (both figuratively and literally, last night) and the bottom fell out. Similar to Rousey, I thought the way McGregor decided to fight, while his "style", was mental. No real adjustments and he found out constantly getting punched in the head gets you in bother. Wonder what master GSP made of that.

 

Diaz is clearly one of the better conditioned UFC fighters, but McGregor was a bit Scott Steiner v Triple H early in the second - surely they'd be working on pushing his conditioning, seeing as RDA is such a round-to-round beast. Granted, getting consistently punched in the head is helping things, but still he looked like he was doing steaks and Irn Bru.

 

Anyway, he was out of his depth, he fought like a tit and Nate Diaz was not at all surprised motherfuckers.

 

Pleased for Tate that she managed to finally win the belt. Particularly pleasing because what a tremendous way to truly get one over Dana White for acting like a tit last year; White's face though.

 

Be interesting to see how this McGregor thing plays out now.

[d-d-d-dAz]

I forgot Nate's post-fight line.

 

'I'M NOT SURPRISED MUTHAFUCKA'S!'

 

That was so cool..

[Carbomb]

Nothing to add about the fight, but something to consider: given McGregor's near-psychotic sense of self-belief, his first defeat in his current incarnation as a fighter should make for an incredibly interesting scenario.

 

Remember how he said he was "going to come back better than anyone has ever come back before"? That sort of thing isn't quantifiable or measurable by any means, but it was pretty damn impressive.

 

Defeat is very often one of the most galvanising factors in a fighter's career. If McGregor's really the kind of fighter we've seen in the videos, then he's going to hold on to this, watch the videos almost obsessively, pick apart in detail every single thing he did wrong, and probably come after Diaz again. He'll probably also obsess over how, even after all this time and improvement, he's lost by submission again, and spend the next year or so pissing off Gunnar Nelson with requests to spar in grappling.

 

Either that, or he'll collapse mentally, and just rely on his talking to get the money fights, headlights on but engine fucked. This is less likely; I'm sure his crew will point to all the pay-offs his hard work achieved, the Aldo win being a pretty legit bit of evidence, but even still, it's a possibility.

[jimufctna24]

I'm with David. They might have hurt, sure, but he never, ever looked in danger of being stopped.

 

And Conor was fucking swinging for the first row. He wouldn't have kept that up for 5 rounds. By the second round, McGregor was a busted flush and Diaz was just warming up, boxing his head off and forcing him to make a silly mistake.

I don't think it would have taken 5 rounds for McGregor to make that breakthrough. While Diaz was never on really shaky ground, he was getting busted up. That cut was very deep. As posted above, he even admitted those shots were hurting. 

 

Diaz fought a very good fight, but I don't think he was as comfortable as some are making out. McGregor clearly won the first round, and started the second round well. The pace would have slowed if the fight continued, but you have to believe with a short camp, Diaz would have also slowed down. It wasn't so much that Diaz fought a clever fight that impressed me, it was more that he pounced when he hurt McGregor, and didn't let him off the hook. It's always been a central part of Diaz's game, and in my opinion his strongest attribute. He's a great closer. 

[David]

The main thing for me? The weight. Everyone spoke about how "built" and "ripped" he looked before the fight.

 

This ain't no bodybuilding contest.

 

He'll bounce back at his optimum weight, and will no doubt see much more success as he's a class fighter. He'll maybe even find himself more popular now, as the fans who were turned of by him that I've seen have been impressed by his humility.

[wandshogun09]

I forgot Nate's post-fight line.

 

'I'M NOT SURPRISED MUTHAFUCKA'S!'

 

That was so cool..

Forgot about that. Loved that line.

 

Miesha had a good one at the press conference as well, something about telling Bryan Caraway it's 'Red Briefs Night' for him or something. Caraway the jammy cunt.

 

Who'd have thought that Nate Diaz and Miesha Tate would steal the show on a McGregor PPV?

 

Got to say as well, I'm finished counting Miesha Tate out. It's one of those things where I recognise her skills but then I always talk myself out of giving her a real chance of winning. It's always 'Miesha's tough, has strong grappling, good cardio, tons of heart, improving striking...BUT she's not winning this fight.' Then she makes me look stupid. Again and again and again. It's at the point now where even this Tate vs Rousey 3 fight, I never thought I'd give Tate a shot at beating Rousey but with everything that's gone on - Miesha's improvements, the questions on how Ronda comes back - I am actually at the point of saying 'fuck it, 50/50 fight again'.

[jimufctna24]

All 3 judges had Tate down by a point before the last round.

 

Given Tate scored that takedown late on in the 5th - and it was a round hanging in the balance before that - Tate needed a stoppage to win the title. Even if Tate would have kept Holm down and won the 5th round on the judges card, it would have been scored a draw. 

[wandshogun09]

All 3 judges had Tate down by a point before the last round.

 

Given Tate scored that takedown late on in the 5th - and it was a round hanging in the balance before that - Tate needed a stoppage to win the title. Even if Tate would have kept Holm down and won the 5th round on the judges card, it would have been scored a draw.

 

That makes her win even better to me. How many times do you see a fighter in a title match, who's down on the cards, freeze out there and hesitate to go all out to make something happen? Tate had a bit of the Robbie Lawler thing about her last night for me, where she bit down on the mouthpiece and said 'bollocks to this' and gambled getting finished herself for the chance to finish Holm. And it paid off for her.

 

I'm not even a big fan of Tate's, to be honest. I don't dislike her but I've always kind of got the impression her nice girl persona is as fake as those tits she invested in. I might be letting my dislike for Caraway cloud my judgement, I admit, but there we are. Holm seems like a much more genuinely likable person to me and I was hoping she'd win both for that reason and because I wanted to see Holm vs Rousey 2 more than Tate vs Rousey 3. But I was mega impressed with Tate's performance last night. Well, in her last few fights really.

[jimufctna24]

Even before the end, I thought Tate put in a good performance.

 

Unlike Rousey, she didn't play into Holm's game. As Rogan kept saying, she was much more measured than Rousey was. Holm clearly won rounds 1,3 and 4 - but Tate was never in serious trouble from what I could tell.