Former two-division champion Conor McGregor shared a strong take about the UFC 279 main event with Khamzat Chimaev and Nate Diaz falling apart at the last minute.
On Friday, Chimaev missed weight by seven-and-a-half pounds for the welterweight clash, causing the promotion to cancel the fight with Diaz, who weighed in at 171 pounds. Shortly before the ceremonial weigh-ins, UFC president Dana White announced that Diaz would now fight his longtime rival, Tony Ferguson, and Chimaev would battle Kevin Holland in a five-round co-main event catchweight bout.
The UFC pay-per-view event goes down on September 10th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Early Saturday morning, McGregor gave his take on Chimaev missing weight. He took issue with “Borz,” who was all smiles during the weigh-in even though he had missed the mark by a large margin.
The Irishman tweeted that Chimaev should have been taken off of UFC 279 entirely, instead of being given Holland, which is a more “favorable” fight in McGregor’s eyes.
“My opinion they should have pulled khamzat from the card entirely,” McGregor tweeted. “Reconfiguring bouts, and with a more favorable bout for the failed cutter, will only make many others in the game follow suit. The smirks on the scale where enough for me. Pull from the card and starve. McG UFC.”
“Notorious” also gave rare praise to his two-time opponent Diaz. Diaz will be a free agent after he exits the Octagon on Saturday night, something McGregor congratulated his rival on. However, McGregor did end the tweet by saying the third fight between them “will happen.”
“Congrats Nate Diaz on making it to the end of his contractual obligations with the UFC, and as a bonafide superstar goer,” McGregor wrote. “An incredible feat. Fair play. Our trilogy will happen.”
Diaz Says He’s 1-0 Against Chimaev After Borz Misses Weight
If fight fans have followed Diaz throughout the years, they’d likely know that if an opponent doesn’t make it to the cage to fight him, Diaz considers it a victory for himself. So when he spoke with ESPN during their weigh-in show, Diaz said he was 1-0 against Chimaev.
“Scared. That f****** fool is scared,” Diaz said per MMA Fighting.
“At least I don’t have to deal with this, so that’s 1-0 on [Chimaev]. So if I can get through this dude tomorrow, then that’s 2-0 for the weekend. So this is 2-for-1.”
Diaz Calls Chimaev ‘A Little-Leaguer,’ Says He Has to Watch Tape on Ferguson
Diaz continued with his thoughts on his last-minute opponent change, calling it “irritating.”
“It’s all a mess. It’s f****** irritating,” Diaz continued. “I trained for Khamzat. I don’t even know how to fight this guy. I’m going to watch some video, but s***, it don’t matter anyway because I train for everybody always anyway. I don’t train for fights anymore, I just train to fight everybody always, ready for war. It for sure makes me happy though that I’m not supporting the bulls*** that they’ve [the UFC] been trying to push on me the whole time.
“And this guy is a little-leaguer, bro. Straight up, a little-leaguer playing in the major leagues. And he felt I didn’t belong? I’ll never fight him in here, but I’ll fight him right now if I could f****** find his b**** ass here anyway.”
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Conor McGregor Sides With Nate Diaz After UFC Fiasco Ft. Khamzat Chimaev