Nate Diaz insisted, during his TV interview with ESPN, that he was trying to lie low in New York.
The Californian was in New York to catch the UFC’s debut at Madison Square Garden but claims he lost one of the best seats in the house once Conor McGregor was confirmed to fight Eddie Alvarez.
Diaz was not looking to steal The Notorious’ limelight but he was not best pleased he was bumped up to a club box to watch all the UFC 205 action unfold. He is not sure whether it was the promotion that wanted to hide him away or whether McGregor insisted upon it in his bout agreement. He commented:
“Why didn’t I get tickets to this fight? I said, ‘I’ll leave him alone. I don’t want to fight the guy. Just let me get a seat.’ Me and my brother [Nick], they didn’t want to let either one of us in here.
“They want to hide me out, I think. Put him on more of a pedestal than they have already. It’s whatever though.”
Diaz recalled that the moment McGregor knocked Alvarez flat to win his lightweight belt, hundreds turned to him up in the box to get his reaction. “I’m like, ‘Hey, what do you want me to do? The UFC didn’t even want to give me tickets to this fight. I think they gave Nick Jonas my seat’.”
Diaz’ respect for McGregor is clear, though. Two men can go through the five-round war that they did at UFC 202 and not have respect for each other.
“I don’t really want to do interviews or bash the guy because everybody can’t do nothing but hate on the guy for doing his belt thing. If they gave me all that attention and all these opportunities, I would take them too. So it’s all good.”
Diaz is hoping to get that trilogy fight against McGregor and John Kavanagh feels he is the next best fighter in the lightweight division. Diaz, however, insists he will not be begging for his next shot.
He paid McGregor his dues but his second problem with the Dubliner’s latest victory is the hype.
“Congratulations to Conor,” he began.
“He did a great job, got the two belts, but I just know that me and him both know what happened in [our] fights and that ‘greatest of all time’ stuff needs to just come to an end.
“I don’t remember any of the greatest of all times getting worked over like in the last two fights.”
