Conor McGregor may be a knockout machine but now that he's lost that psychological edge over Nate Diaz, it's going to have to be a very different build-up when the rematch is finally confirmed. Many fans are undoubtedly going to want to see the featherweight champ go out all guns blazing like he has in the past but, according to Joe Rogan, that's simply not going to work.
Rogan was as confident as anyone that Conor McGregor would steamroll all before him at UFC 196 and, looking back, his 'Rogan Riffs' in the week leading up to the fight is now looking rather ill-advised, but then the reality of the Nate Diaz challenge became all too apparent and here we sit, less than a month later, in a significantly different realm.
Speaking on his podcast this week, Rogan has gone into detail about the fight and Nate Diaz's strengths with UFC 200 and the rematch in mind and he has one very important piece of advice for McGregor, 'you've got to be obsessed with jiu jitsu'.
Nate Diaz is the wrong guy to go to the ground with. Nate Diaz is a legit black belt, a really high-level black belt. I knew Conor had gotten submitted by Joe Duffy. Anybody can get submitted if you get caught, but he got submitted by that Joe Duffy guy just a few years ago. Joe Duffy is a very talented fighter, no doubt about it, but Nate wouldn't have gotten submitted by that same guy. I highly, highly, highly doubt it.
Some may suggest that's unfair to Duffy but there's no doubt that, in terms of his jiu-jitsu ability, Diaz was a level removed from anything McGregor faced before. Of course it's easy to say that in hindsight, but with the much publicised Ido Portal training regime, it's fair to say that the technical jiu jitsu aspects of McGregor's game that night was lacking.
A guy like Conor, if you've been tapped before by Joe Duffy just a few years ago with an arm triangle, to get caught like that, you've got a lot to learn and I don't know if you've learned it all in time. You've got to be obsessed with jiu jitsu.
You've got to be in there every day training and I didn't think he did [that for UFC 196]. I thought it was more about movement and striking and all that stuff. I know he was doing some jiu jitsu but it's not like the primary focus. So I felt like, that's a big fucking deep end jump.
Rogan has never been one to hold back his respect for McGregor as a fighter but, having seen what we all saw at UFC 196, it seems he's not going to be quite so open with his belief as to which fighter is going to win the rematch.
Conor can knock out anybody. But he didn't. So now that he didn't and now that Nate knows he didn't, now they're going to go into the second fight and Nate's going to have a full training camp. Good luck.
Quotes via MMA Fighting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_WaIhnUyQM
