Yahoo Sports Will Nate Diaz Pick Someone from the List and Fight at UFC 200?
Nate Diaz may have publicly stated that he was going on vacation after his opponent, Conor McGregor, got pulled from the UFC 200 fight card slated for July 9 in Las Vegas, but UFC president Dana White is hoping to lure him back.
The public power play between McGregor and the UFC has mostly run its course, at least for UFC 200. White is adamant that the UFC will not relent and allow McGregor back on the summer blockbuster after he refused to do the promotional tour the UFC required of him.
When White declared at a press conference in Las Vegas that McGregor was off the card, but that he wanted Diaz to still fight, Diaz declared that it was McGregor or no one for him.
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“I came to fight Conor McGregor and I don’t really have too much interest in anybody else,” said Diaz.
McGregor is out. End of story. But at a UFC 200 press conference at Madison Square Garden in New York on Wednesday, White said he is still going to give Diaz an opportunity to remain on the card.
“We're going to offer him some fights and see what he wants to do. It sounded like he wanted Conor and only Conor at the press conference (in Las Vegas), but we gave him the opportunity to come. I didn't want to rip him off of the opportunity to fight at 200 if he wanted,” said White.
The UFC 200 fight card already features three title fights: Daniel Cormier vs. Jon Jones, Jose Aldo vs. Frankie Edgar, and Miesha Tate vs. Amanda Nunes. The card also features such heavy-hitting non-title bouts as Cain Velasquez vs. Travis Browne, Cat Zingano vs. Julianna Peña, Jim Miller vs. Takanori Gomi, Diego Sanchez vs. Joe Lauzon, and others. Whether or not Diaz joins the card, White said their not done stacking the deck for the company's biggest event ever.
“We expect it to be big and it will be big,” White said. “We just added (Cormier vs. Jones) to the card and we're not done.”
