There may be some animosity between the Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz camps, but Jake Shields doesn’t look like he wants any part of it.
Shields will go down as one of the greatest welterweights in the sport’s history having beaten former UFC beltholders Robbie Lawler and Carlos Condit as well as current champion Tyron Woodley, but remarkably he has never held the belt himself.
As a training partner of Nate Diaz, Shields was a part of the Stockton native’s huge entourage at UFC 202. Speaking to Submission Radio directly after his homeboy’s majority decision loss to Conor McGregor in the headline bout, Shields gave a pretty damn fair assessment of the fight.
The controversial reason Conor McGregor's win over Nate Diaz was not unanimous https://t.co/TCwJKGxR80
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) August 21, 2016
Diaz believes he won the fight, and Shields agrees with him, but unlike some fans who inexplicably argued it was a robbery, Shields knows the fight was way to close to say for sure.
“It was an amazing fight, first off. It was one of the best fights I’ve seen in a while. Secondly, I thought Diaz put on a close decision. I need to go home and re-watch it on TV. Watching it I thought it was close, but I thought Diaz pulled it out. But when a fight’s that close, there’s not much you can do.”
“I wasn’t very sure. I thought he won a close fight. I think a couple of those rounds were pretty close, I think Diaz dominated a couple of the rounds more than Conor dominated them. So I feel like from the whole fight standpoint Diaz definitely wins, but when you start adding each round up, it gets pretty tricky.”
Shields also had some very classy comments to say about McGregor. He explained that McGregor dropping granite-chinned Diaz a number of times so early into the fight didn’t catch him off guard because he realises the Notorious possesses this ability.
“I wasn’t really surprised. I mean, McGregor’s an amazing fighter, he’s one of the best out there. We expected the war in these fights – one of them could go and finish the other guy quick, or it could be a five-round war. We don’t know what’s gonna happen, so we’re prepared for everything.”
Finally, Shields addressed the issue of Diaz’s injuries heading into the fight and much like the fighter, he doesn’t want to use it as an excuse as it is not uncommon for fighters to be banged up going into contests.
“There were some issues in camp, but it is what it is, that always happens. Hopefully next time we’ll prepare a lot better.”
“Just some health issues. I don’t want to make excuses for anybody. It’s not that uncommon for guys to be a little injured during camp. So I’m not making excuses, but he wasn’t able to grapple very much so it made it a little tough. But still, Conor came out and fought great tonight, Nate came out and fought great tonight. I thought they both did well and it was a very entertaining fight to watch.”
Jesus, he should be a politician with answers like that.
