– Paul Dollery reports from Las Vegas
IF CONOR McGREGOR seemed agitated last night at the Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas, the events of the previous day were probably responsible.
At his open workout for fans ahead of tomorrow night’s headline bout against Nate Diaz at UFC 202 at the T-Mobile Arena, McGregor appeared to be unusually prickly as he snarled his way through a few brief questions from the media in attendance.
On Wednesday, a press conference involving McGregor and Diaz ended abruptly when the latter instigated a bout of bottle-throwing between the opposing camps as he decided to make an early exit. Diaz sought to get under his opponent’s skin and it certainly looks to have succeeded.
After raising his middle fingers to the Diaz fans in the crowd who were heckling him last night at the Red Rock, McGregor had this to say when presenter Megan Olivi asked him about the turn-out, with a few hundred fans crammed into a small lounge in the casino on the outskirts of Las Vegas.
“Fuck the Diaz brothers. Fuck those cockroaches,” McGregor responded.
He added: “We came here ready for war, not ready to throw little bitch bottles and go running. We’re here ready to fight, so let’s go.”
McGregor was submitted by Diaz in the second round of their bout at UFC 196 in March. A rematch, which will be extremely lucrative for both fighters, was fixed just a few weeks later.
“That fairytale he’s after having is coming to an end, so all his little fans giving him this invincible feeling that he can’t be knocked out — he can be knocked out and he will be knocked out.”
After defeating Jose Aldo with a 13-second knockout last December to win the UFC featherweight title, McGregor cemented his status as a superstar. However, he doesn’t believe this weekend’s welterweight clash with Diaz — irrespective of the outcome — will have an impact on how he’s remembered.
“My legacy is set in stone,” McGregor said. “My legacy was set in stone when Jose crumbled in 13 seconds. This is just something else outside of this. This is just a straight fight, so I’m happy with that because that’s what I came in for. I came in here for a straight fight.”
Before dropping the microphone and storming off the stage, McGregor had one final message for Nate Diaz: “Fuck Team Diaz, and if you’re down with Team Diaz, then fuck you too.”
