The buildup for Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz’s fight at UFC 202 has been relatively tame compared to the buildup for their fight at UFC 196. Yes, there’s been some trash talking between the two sides, but McGregor has spent more time beefing with WWE wrestlers than he has taking shots at Diaz. That all ended on Wednesday afternoon during a pre-UFC 202 press conference in Las Vegas.
McGregor was fashionably late for the press conference, which seemed to piss Dana White off. When he finally arrived, he claimed he thought it started at 1:30 p.m. He then started to talk a little trash to Diaz—"I’m ready for whatever he has to bring," he said at one point—before Diaz inexplicably got up from the podium and walked off the stage. He then made his way back into the crowd while McGregor was answering a question about the possibility of the two men engaging in a third fight if he wins at UFC 202. Several moments later, Diaz started yelling, "Fuck your whole team!" at McGregor, which obviously got a rise out of him.
"Fuck your whole team!" McGregor yelled. "You little crackhead asses. You’ll do nothing!"
Diaz responded to that by walking through the crowd with his team and giving McGregor the finger:
"Shut your fucking mouth, you’ll do nothing!" McGregor said. "You’ll do fucking nothing! Not one of yous will do nothing! Get the fuck outta here! Get the fuck outta here!"
And from there, it was on. Diaz threw a water bottle at McGregor. McGregor threw one back:
And before long, both sides were throwing whatever they could get their hands on:
"That’s a wrap!" White yelled into the microphone as it was going on. "Hey, Conor… don’t throw those fucking… Hey, Conor. Conor! That’s a wrap. Get them out of here."
And if you’re thinking, "That was so staged," those within the room say it was very real. Here was MMA reporter Ariel Helwani’s reaction:
You can check out the action in the clip above, starting at about the 17:00 mark and ending just four minutes later. What a scene. Saturday should be nuts.
