Time for the Nate push?
UFC 196 main event winner Nate Diaz has claimed that the promotion has done everything it can to make Conor McGregor a star, while given less exposure and opportunities to other fighters like himself and Frankie Edgar.
Diaz jumped at the chance to step for the injured Rafael dos Anjos but insisted the UFC would never have scheduled a fight against McGregor under normal circumstances.
“I’ve been fighting for 12 years as a martial artist, and just knowing, seeing the push this guy got,” Diaz told Fox Sports 1. “That guy’s where he’s at, he’s a good fighter and all, but he’s where he is because of the push he’s getting.
“I’ve been putting in a lot of work but there ain’t no push, so I’m going to make it mine. I know I’m a better fighter than him. I just wish… I mean they were never going to give me a full camp for this guy, there were going to everything they could. They were going to try and not give [Frankie] a full camp. They want to bring him back to the top.”
Diaz admitted it was hard to begrudge McGregor personally, given that any fighter would be crazy to turn down such a path to stardom, saying that he had to take the fight no matter the circumstances seeing as he would never again get the chance.
“Hey, it’s hard to hate, the guy did a great job. How you going to hate? If I’m getting all that I’d be like ‘Sorry everybody, should have been at the right place at the right time’, like he was.
“I got the chance to take that right place, right time and I took it as quickly as I could, because if I pass that up I ain’t never gonna get it again.
“I’ve been in the UFC since I was 21 years old, I think that was my 24th or 25th fight and there’s no experience like that. We’ll see if he’s where he’s at when in 20 fights from now.”
