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#3 Nate Diaz
After tasting defeat in his first meeting with Nate Diaz, McGregor had a shot at redemption at UFC 202.
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In the first bout back at UFC 197, Diaz did the unthinkable and roughed up the Irishman before choking him out in one of the biggest upsets in recent times. Diaz had exposed shortcomings in Conor’s game – mainly a lack of conditioning, and a deficiency in the grappling department – but McGregor was determined to get this one back and he demanded the immediate rematch.
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Once again McGregor came flying out the traps, this time dropping Diaz multiple times in the opening rounds. But unlike in the first fight where McGregor described being "inefficient" with his energy, the Irishman wasn’t over-committing to his shots, instead of picking them more carefully with one eye on the gas tank that had deserted him last around.
McGregor continued to find a home for that venomous left hand, but once again Diaz seemed unperturbed, and the Stockton fighter continued to come forward with the same relentless pace that saw McGregor’s cardio crumble when they went at it a few months earlier.
As the minutes’ ticked by, Diaz was beginning to drag McGregor into deeper and deeper water, with the Californian unleashing a barrage of strikes, particularly in rounds 3 and 5.
As the final round drew to a close and the fight went to the scorecards, it was anybody’s guess who’d get the judges’ nod.
In the end, they scored it 48-47 48-47 47-47 in favour of McGregor, but in fairness to Diaz the fight was extremely close, and on another night he may have walked away with the victory. However, this time McGregor had done what he needed to and he’d levelled the score 1-1 with his new-found foe.
With this victory, McGregor had once again displayed tremendous courage by climbing back in there with the guy that had defeated him quite handily only a few months earlier. The ship was righted, and it was on to Alvarez for the lightweight title.
