Conor McGregor, UFC featherweight champion and perennial super star, is known for making very accurate predictions on his upcoming fights. Not only has he predicted the exact round he would finish his opponent, but even the exact punch and the manner in which the KO occurs. McGregor has made his prediction on how he will KO Nate Diaz this Saturday at UFC 197, but will he be accurate? Let’s go over what the fight may look like according to McGregor’s mystic ball.
Here, McGregor discusses how the long-range left uppercut will be the shot to put Diaz down. We know Diaz will have a small reach advantage on Conor, and that Diaz is at least a few inches taller than McGregor. This makes me question how Conor McGregor will use a typically short-range weapon against a longer and rangier opponent. That being said, there are ways McGregor can manipulate Diaz’s movements to set himself up for success with that particular shot.
“He’s a hit and pull fighter. He hits, pulls. Hits, pulls.”
This is the way McGregor describes Diaz, and it’s very accurate. In his last bout, and arguably the biggest win of his career, Nate Diaz battered Michael Johnson with consistent one-two combinations. A sequence occurred during the fight that repeated itself time and time again throughout the 15-minutes: Johnson throws a one-two, Diaz pulls out of range, the combination misses, Diaz closes the gap with a one-two, the combination lands, Diaz then pulls out of range again to avoid any Johnson counters.
One thing to note here in the above video is that Diaz does a fantastic job at moving his upper body in anticipation of incoming strikes, and staying in command of the range. However, he does not move his feet very well. He stays planted to the mat with a lot of weight on his lead foot to throw his one-two, and then shifts his weight to his back foot. You can think of it as a type of rocking motion every time he throws this combination (which is quite often).
Typically, Diaz leans straight back. Leaning straight back is a very big no-no in traditional boxing as straight punches will travel down the pipe line to the chin, and hit you while off balance. Diaz got away with this though because Johnson didn’t pose any threat of closing the distance and landing on Diaz’s retreat. Look for McGregor to threaten here and attack while Diaz recoils back from his combination.
Against opponents that do close the distance however, Diaz will avoid leaning straight back, and instead lean down and to the left. Sometimes, he leans very far to the left without proper defense. This left him susceptible to Josh Thompson’s head kick which resulted in Diaz’s only TKO loss. This is a way I believe McGregor could find a home for his long-range left uppercut. If McGregor threatens Diaz by threatening in close range (close enough where both fighters can land, and Diaz can’t escape by simply leaning straight back), he can then prompt Diaz into ducking right into one of his uppercuts.
McGregor has referenced ripping Diaz’s “soft body” several times already; this especially became prevalent in the press conference. Seeing as how Diaz keeps his feet planted to move his head and fire off counters, his torso will remain rather stationary – open for McGregor’s onslaught. One thing that isn’t detrimental for Diaz in this situation is his southpaw stance, meaning his lead arm can help protect his liver from McGregor’s left cross.
That is, unless Diaz switches stances. Against Rafael dos Anjos, low kicks became quite the issue for Diaz, so he was forced to switch to orthodox. Conor McGregor isn’t known to throw chopping round kicks to the thigh like dos Anjos, but side kicks to the knee and thigh are a different story. He uses these kicks to open his opponent up and to bait them into throwing (like he did against Jose Aldo), and he can accumulate some very real damage to his opponent’s leg with this attack. Maybe enough to force Diaz into switching to orthodox which would open up Diaz up to McGregor’s Celtic Cross more so than in the southpaw stance.
Conor McGregor sees this fight resulting in a first round stoppage. McGregor has said that “[Diaz] won’t be able to handle the ferocity.” This makes me think McGregor is going to come out storming; throwing lots of variety and lots of output. Expect McGregor to attack the body and legs early as he flows in and out of boxing range, making Diaz feel threatened at whatever range he finds himself in. Side kicks to the knee, snap kicks to the body, spinning back kicks to the body and head, etc. In anticipation of McGregor’s assaults, Diaz will look to angle off to the side. In doing so, he may be finding himself ducking into a McGregor uppercut. Or, the left uppercut can always be there in the middle of Diaz’s one-two.
This is how Conor McGregor sees the fighting going down – only time will tell to see if Mystic Mac is right.
