NATE DIAZ’S BOXING coach has added his voice to the accusations of performance-enhancing drug use that the Stockton fighter levelled at Conor McGregor last week.
Diaz, who’ll take on McGregor this Saturday night in the main event at UFC 196 in Las Vegas, claimed that the UFC featherweight champion is “on steroids” at a press conference in California on Wednesday.
McGregor, who has never failed a drug test, vehemently refuted Diaz’s accusations, which appeared to be mischievous and subsequently had the Dubliner quite riled up. McGregor responded angrily: “I’m not on no steroids. What the fuck are you talking about?”
According to the database of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, which implements drug-testing procedures on behalf of the UFC, McGregor has already undergone two out-of-competition tests in 2016. Nate Diaz has had one.
Diaz’s older brother, Nick, is currently serving an 18-month ban for marijuana use. His team-mates, Gilbert Melendez and Jake Shields, have both previously failed drug tests.
In an interview with Submission Radio, Richard Perez — Nate Diaz’s boxing coach — reiterated the fighter’s belief that “the whole UFC” is using performance-enhancing drugs. Perez pointed to the fact that McGregor is making a relatively unprecedented move from featherweight (145lbs) to welterweight (170lbs) for this weekend’s bout.
“Oh I sure do believe that; heck yeah. Some guys, they get busted — and to be honest with you, I know McGregor has got to be on some kind of steroids. He’s pretty big. And then all of a sudden [he’s] jumping to 170 [pounds]? Yeah, there’s no way, because I mean, he was supposed to be fighting at 155,” Perez said.
“So if you think about it, he was focusing on training at 155. He only had two weeks to go. And all of a sudden he’s going to jump to 170? So no, there’s something going on. But still, I mean, we’re still going to fight and that’s all there is to it.”
Perez added: “When Nathan mentioned it to him, he got defensive, he got angry. If somebody would have told me that I was fighting and he told me, you know, steroids… I would laugh and say: ‘Yeah, give me some more steroids, heck yeah, ah ha, sure’.
“But he got defensive and mad, you know? ‘I’m not on steroids, I’m not on steroids’. You know, he was like, trying to defend himself. So that, just his actions and the way he talked is… there’s something behind that.”
McGregor was due to take on UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos this weekend but the Brazilian withdrew due to an injury and Diaz took his place. Despite competing at 145lbs for his seven bouts in the UFC so far, Perez believes McGregor was struggling to make the 155lbs limit for his lightweight clash with dos Anjos.
Perez claimed that Diaz wanted to fight McGregor at 155lbs, but the Irishman pushed for a 170lbs bout. That’s something that doesn’t tally with the information that came from McGregor’s camp, as well as UFC president Dana White. According to them, Diaz could only make 165lbs so McGregor told him to “get comfortable” at 170lbs instead.
“All I know is that [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 to 165 and then he went to 170,” said Perez.
“So 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, you know, or go to 160. But he didn’t, he jumped to 170. So that’s kinda shady right there.”
Perez added: “Right, that’s what I’m saying; that McGregor couldn’t make the weight. Because he would have said: ‘Okay, let’s go to 160 or let’s go to 155′, because Nathan was ready for it. And he didn’t [accept]. So then he jumped to 170. Why?
“I mean, two weeks ago — and you know, if you’re a fighter and you’ve been training for two months or so and you’re already cutting your weight down, so in two weeks you should be close to 155. But he’s at least five pounds over, you know. No. So all of a sudden, 155 to 170? Oh boy, that’s a big jump. So there’s something fishy going on there.”
The steroids agenda appears to be a ploy to test the Irish fighter psychologically in the build-up to Saturday night’s headliner at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
John Kavanagh, McGregor’s head coach, dismissed Perez’s comments as “fear” on the part of Diaz’s camp this morning via Twitter.
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