Richard Perez, Nate Diaz’s boxing coach, believes there’s something dodgy about Conor McGregor asking to fight Nate Diaz at welterweight.
McGregor was initially scheduled to slug it out against Rafael dos Anjos for the lightweight strap in UFC 196’s main event, but the Brazilian’s broken foot left the UFC scrambling to find a replacement for the 155 lb king.
However, Perez told Submission radio that he believes McGregor never would have made championship weight for the dos Anjos fight in the first place.
“He (McGregor) was supposed to fight at 155, and for some reason, I don’t think he would have made the weight because he was trying to go up to 165 then he went to 170.”
Nate Diaz was eventually announced as the saviour for UFC 196’s headliner, but it was thought that 12 days notice was too big of an ask for him to make 155. Reports emerged that Diaz had requested a catchweight contest at 160/165 lb.
McGregor then offered to make it a welterweight allowing Diaz to “stay comfortable”, but Perez believes that the Dubliner had no option but to fight at 170, hinting that making 155 was out of the question.
“Think about it, if you see that, you would think he had two more weeks to go, he would be close to 155 and stay on that or jump up to 160, but he didn’t, he jumped to 170. That’s kind of shady right there.”
“That’s what I’m saying, McGregor couldn’t make the weight, because he would have said let’s go to 160, let’s go to 155 because Nathan was ready for it. He didn’t. He jumped to 170. Why?”
“If you’re a fighter and you’ve been training for two months or so, you’re already cutting your weight down. So at two weeks, you should be close to 155. At least five pounds over. All of a sudden, 55 to 70… whoa, that’s a big jump. There’s something fishy going on there.”
When asked if it was possible for Diaz to make 155 in such a short space of time, Perez didn’t hesitate.
“Oh yeah, knowing Nathan yeah. I like it better know, it’s more comfortable for me, anyway, but for him, oh yeah.”
