Nate Diaz is confident of fighting Conor McGregor in a trilogy fight at some point in the future. Currently set to face the surging Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 279 next weekend, Diaz believes now is not the right time to dwell on a trilogy fight against McGregor.
However, Diaz is confident of the matchup coming to fruition at some point. The Stockton native said in an interview with Inside Fighting:
“The timing’s not on right now. We’ll worry about that later. It’s for sure gonna happen at some point… Yeah, at some point. Get back on it and get back on what he’s got to do, whatever that is. It’s like, when we match up we’re going to match up. But we ain’t going nowhere.”
Nate Diaz faced Conor McGregor for the first time at UFC 196 in 2016, pulling off a huge upset win via second-round submission. The two met in a rematch barely six months later at UFC 202 where the Stockton native came up on the short side of a majority decision.
Dana White on Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz triology
Nate Diaz’s first fight against Conor McGregor sold a record 1,317,000 pay-per-views, the fifth highest in UFC history. The rematch did even better and currently sits at number three in terms of the highest selling PPVs in UFC history.
However, UFC president Dana White won’t regret it if a trilogy fight between the two never materializes. Defending Diaz’s booking against Khamzat Chimaev, White claimed that the Stockton slugger is keen to fight right now instead of waiting for the McGregor trilogy booking.
The UFC boss is also happy with the success achieved by the first two bookings between Diaz and McGregor. White said during a DWCS post-fight presser in July:
“No, it’s not like, ‘Oh God, I never got the chance to make No. 3. The first two were awesome. That first round with Conor and Nate in the first fight was insane. Conor was landing these crazy bombs, then Diaz comes out in that second round. It was madness, and then the second fight was awesome. If it happens, it happens, but we got enough out of the first two.”
Watch Nate Diaz’s take on the Conor McGregor trilogy below: