It appears that the emphasis Conor McGregor placed on conditioning and cardio ahead of his rematch with Nate Diaz at UFC 202, which takes place this Saturday night (Aug. 20, 2016) inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, paid dividends inside the Octagon. At least in a virtual sense, as "Notorious" lasted a full five rounds to win a back-and-forth, bloody split decision over the Stockton slugger in EA Sports UFC 2's simulation of this weekend's pay-per-view (PPV) main event.
That result seems like a bit of a stretch, considering how their first encounter five months ago played out -- with a spent McGregor rolled on his belly tapping to a rear-naked choke. And it would fly in the face of a recent predictions poll among 21 professional fighters in which only one of them (James Krause) picked the Irishman to win and only another (Derrick Lewis) predicted the 170-pound rematch would head to the judges scorecards.
Will life imitate art? We'll find out this weekend in "Sin City."
To see who else is competing on Saturday night's UFC 202 fight card click here.
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