– Paul Dollery reports from Las Vegas
CONOR McGREGOR’S REMATCH with Nate Diaz will play out in a similar manner to their first bout, but the outcome will be much different on this occasion.
That’s according to Peter Queally, who has been central to McGregor’s training camp for Saturday night’s fight at UFC 202 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Queally has been in Vegas with McGregor and other members of the Straight Blast Gym stable since 5 July, and he’s convinced that his team-mate is ready to avenge his only defeat in the UFC so far.
After being submitted in the second round of their bout at UFC 196 in March, McGregor cited his gas tank as one of the main reasons for his defeat to Diaz. But the word from the SBG camp in the build-up to this fight is that McGregor has put in the work to ensure that stamina certainly won’t be an issue again.
“From what I’ve seen in the gym, I think this fight will be similar in nature to the last one,” Queally said. “But now Conor is going to have more in the tank. I think he’ll stop Diaz, even though Diaz is like the Terminator. It’s very hard to hurt him. A lot of people said Conor wasn’t hurting him with his shots in the first fight but I believe he was.”
The general consensus is that McGregor will require an adjustment to his strategy in order to win this weekend. Instead of frantically chasing a knockout from the outset, a more patient approach may be his best course of action. However, Queally doesn’t believe wholesale changes are necessary.
“Everyone is expecting Conor to try and score points and back away, but I don’t think that’s going to happen,” said Queally, who was close to being added to this weekend’s UFC 202 card for his debut with the promotion until visa requirements got in the way.
“He’s going to fight him like he did the last time, but the difference here is that he’ll have significantly more in his gas tank and he’ll be able to keep that going for longer.
“I think Conor will get a stoppage in the third or fourth round. That’s what the sparring sessions suggest to me.”
