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Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor Find Mutuality Over Media Duties Ahead Of UFC 202

By Frank Yemi
Published on: 07:24 PST, Aug 7, 2016

Despite their rivalry, many MMA fans find that Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor are similar in many ways. They both have an anti-establishment persona and mutual respect for each other.

Many fans where surprised when Nate Diaz stated that he was happy to see Conor McGregor get acknowledgement for his accomplishments as a fighter, when asked what he thought about the Irish fighter hanging out with Cristiano Ronaldo, according to BJPenn.com.

In the UFC 202 conference call, Conor McGregor echoed the same sentiment about Nate’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and TBS Conan.

“I know it’s something he’s always wanted to be doing,” McGregor said. “I wonder how feeling doing it, because I know it ain’t easy doing all of that. It certainly takes from what we are and what we do, and as much as maybe people don’t realize it, it is very distracting. But I’m happy to see him up there doing his thing. He’s doing well, I think, up there. I came in and gave him a little help there on the Conan show, but I thought the Kimmel one was pretty funny.”

With the death of Joao Carvalho, who fought Conor McGregor’s team mate Charlie Ward, making the notorious statement on fighters putting their life on the line both literal and figurative. Conor goes on to talk about how fighters deserve the good that comes out of the business due to its violent and potentially fatal nature.

Nate Diaz is also starting to feel the distracting effect of media runs as he revealed that he was starting to experience what the Featherweight Champion talked about in terms of missing out on training.

Diaz tweeted out something cryptic about feeling like he was played by the UFC. According MMAMania, he them clarified his comments by stating the following.

“It was just some behind-the-scenes stuff that they were not telling me about and hiding from me,” Diaz said during the UFC 202 conference call. “They had me doing a little run-around. I was just trying to get home and train. I didn’t want to be out there for that long. It all worked out though. I had training out there and it was just like [Conor] said, it’s a distraction when you’re out there.”

Nate Diaz has criticized the UFC for not giving him what he deserves. Despite his popularity he was not paid very well until his fight with Conor McGregor. Diaz felt that Conor was getting a media push by the organization and the only way he can catch the wave was by defeating him.

Nate finished Conor in the second round via submission and McGregor predicts that he will win at UFC 202 in the second round of the bout.

Nate Diaz, who has been making media rounds talks about how he feels about doing press, reports MMAfighting.

“It’s not like something I was losing sleep over trying to get into, but when they call and the opportunities are there, you might as well take them,” Diaz said. “Because all of the marketing gets bigger. I didn’t want to do none of it, but I didn’t want to look back and say f*ck, I should’ve done that. So I’m just doing what I gotta do to get by, get my things cracking, get some things going.”

UFC 202 is expected to be a bigger hit than UFC 200, which reportedly did over 1 million PPV buys. Most bookies have Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz 2 about even.

The Notorious has spoken about training with partners that emulate Diaz’s style and have a similar build and reach advantage. It will be interesting to see who wins the rematch with both fighters having plenty of time to prepare.

Who do you have winning at UFC 202? Leave your comments below.

[Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images]

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