Nate Diaz has no delusions about what the fight he’s taken on short notice this week, and regardless of what happens in his UFC 196 main event bout against Conor McGregor, he won’t be making any excuses.
“I think you should beat everybody on your worst day, but you can never be ready enough for a fight anyway,” Diaz said this week (via TMZ.com, transcribed by MMAFighting.com). “Might get murked. Don’t care, though. It’s all good. Or he might.
“It would have been nice to get a camp. It’s all good, whatever. I’ve went to camps, trained hard and fought like sh*t. Three weeks later, after eating as much as I want, hanging out, not doing nothing, came in and whooped everybody’s ass in the gym anyway. So we’ll see what happens.”
“… It’s no McGregor show,” he continued. “It’s a fight that needed to happen. I’m the biggest fight. They knew they were fighting me already. They were already training for me. They knew what’s up. But hey, don’t trip. Maybe I’ll plot back. They were plotting on me, I might have been plotting back too. You never know.”
Penick’s Analysis: That “don’t give a shit” attitude from the Diaz brothers is why so many are drawn to them, and why he’s the perfect short-notice foil for McGregor. That he knows he could lose this fight badly, that he’s not wholly prepared, and yet is more than willing to try pulling out the win anyway is admirable. We’ll find out on Saturday on which side he falls, but his attitude going in makes him a highly compelling opponent.
[Photo (c) Mark J. Rebilas via USA Today Sports]
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