Nate Diaz was a man with a plan. Sometimes, however, his foul mouth can work against him.
As he told Ariel Helwani in a June edition of The MMA Hour, Nate Diaz was not interested in calling out Conor McGregor on Twitter or on a talk show.
Instead, he set his sights on taking out Michael Johnson and calling out The Notorious after that fight. It was the only way to get noticed.
Diaz duly racked up the win but got a tad too excited in his post-fight call-out:
“Conor McGregor, you’re taking everything I worked for, mother f**ker. I’m gonna fight your f**king ass.
“You know what’s the real fight, what’s the real money fight – me. Not these clowns that you already punked at the press conference. Ain’t nobody wants to see that. You know you can beat them already. It’s an easy fight. You want the real sh*t. Right here.”
The spew of curses that flowed from the Stockton native threatened to see his interview canned. Diaz feared he had overstepped the mark and was all apologies. Footage from the Diaz dressing room shows how concerned he was that he had blown his big chance to get on the radar of McGregor, the UFC and fight fans
This clip – mainly made up of phone and Periscope footage – first appeared after the Diaz-Johnson fight but resurfaced this evening on Reddit.
However, as it turned out, Diaz got his opportunity sooner than expected when Rafael Dos Anjos injured his foot and was forced to pull out of UFC 196.
McGregor had heard the call-out, respected Diaz as a fighter and was happy enough when his name came up as an alternative.
Diaz got his chance, took it and elevated himself into a whole new pay-grade.
“I’m not surprised motherf**kers,” he declared after submitting McGregor back in March.
He wasn’t sorry for that one.
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