Nate Diaz Says He Lost to Conor McGregor Partially Due to Injuring His Knee Before UFC 202

Nate Diaz says a knee injury before his rematch with Conor McGregor made him lose at UFC 202.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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After Nate Diaz lost in his rematch against Conor McGregor at UFC 202 early Sunday morning, he seemed visibly despondent—and punch drunk—when he spoke to the reporters about his takeaways from the fight. Naturally, Diaz thought that he should have been chosen or scored a higher number of points on the card to get the majority decision in his favor, though he lamented that he could've done better things in his strategic attack to seal the victory. But here's what he had to say about McGregor running from him in the Octagon:

"Yeah, I thought I won the fight. I don't want to sound all bitter. You know, it's all good. I got paid, it's all good, you know what I'm saying? I don't think he did much. He did a lot of running in that fight. I've been saying, and my brother's been that for years. That in part, I thought he should've gotten a yellow card for that type of thing, you know? He ran the whole fight. You see me chasing him around that thing, like, 'Where are you going?' I'm pointing at him and he's scared to engage. I feel like they should've took points for that."

Then he spoke openly about a knee injury that he suffered during his training one month prior to the fight. Diaz claims that along with a rib injury he got after sparring in his boxing training partially contributed to him losing in his rematch with McGregor:

“I was injured coming into this fight. And that ain’t some excuse, either. I got the whole thing on tape.” Diaz explained. “I hurt my knee about a month ago, and I wasn’t able to train jiu jitsu for the past month. And then about two weeks after that, I was just sparring boxing and I really hurt my rib. I got hit in the body by my [training partner], Alan Sanchez is a really good boxer, skilled boxer. And that put me out of sparring about two and a half weeks ago. And I got that all on tape, just to set it up, not to make excuses cuz I got all that video’d up.”

Despite taking the L, Diaz threw more shade at McGregor to act like he was the tougher of the two claiming that he was still standing upright ready to party at Las Vegas nightclub Light while McGregor was at the nearby hospital recovering from the fight:

"He's at the hospital, I hear. I'm right here. And he's supposed to do some shit at [Wynn], at the club and do an afterparty. I don't think he's gonna make it. He's really messed up. I'm about to go to [Light], Las Vegas, shout out to Light (laughs). I'm gonna go do my thing over there. That's what winners do. Finish off my night like a soldier."

Since Diaz won their first match, and McGregor won the second, we just can't wait what Part 3 of this rivalry is going to look like in addition to their classic fight series. 

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