Midnight Mania! Nate Diaz reacts to Mayweather vs McGregor - ‘Good fight for that #2 spot’

Welcome to Midnight Mania! It’s officially official -- Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather are going to do the damn thing. And by that, I mean they are going to box each other in a ridiculously noncompetitive money grab, that, let’s be honest, is our faults because we are all going to watch it. Tonight, we’ve Nate Diaz taunting both of them, some of the juicy parts from the first conference call for the fight, Stipe Miocic trying to get in on that action, knockouts, podcasts and much more.

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Not Surprised!

Nate Diaz had a simple response to the fight announcements: “It’s gonna be a good fight for that No. 2 spot.” Diaz, fresh of a beach in Mexico, rocked an unprepared, overconfident, and exhausted McGregor with punches and finished him with a choke in their first bout at UFC 196. After a $300,000 fight camp, McGregor managed to take a close, but clear, decision win in their rematch, an all-time great fight at UFC 202. In Diaz’ mind, he’s still the winner of their two meetings, and is waiting patiently for McGregor to return to the sport for the trilogy fight.

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Conference Call Highlights

Dana White and Mayweather Promotion’s Leonard Ellerbe went on a media call to answer questions about the newly announced bout. Interestingly, no details about the financial aspect of this bout will be disclosed.

Leonard Ellerbe: “We have a confidentiality clause in place, and the financials will not be disclosed.”

White assured us that no one is bummed out about money in this one. There are several possible reasons to keep the financials confidential. One is that Conor is making much less than Floyd; another is that the UFC is taking a huge chunk of his portion of the split. However, it could also be to keep UFC fighters from understanding how much of the cut of a normal PPV the UFC takes, and how much more McGregor is making in a boxing match under the Ali Act.

Mayweather’s official post announcing the bout:

White doesn’t think McGregor losing to Mayweather, as most predict, will damage his own or UFC’s brand:

“No, absolutely not. At the end of the day, these two guys wanted this fight, the fans wanted this fight, and Conor’s a mixed martial artist, he’s going into a boxing match with arguably the greatest boxer of all time. I don’t think it damages the brand or Conor McGregor at all, I think it actually elevates Conor McGregor- the fact that this kid who has so much to lose is willing to step in, and the fact that he is absolutely confident he will win this fight, I think its one of the many reasons people love Conor McGregor, and win, lose, or draw, I think it’s one of the reasons people will continue to love Conor McGregor.

This “Conor is courageous for taking this fight” line is complete fiction, of course. Any UFC fighter would take this fight for the money that the Irishman is making, as is proved by the amount of fighters lobbying for boxing matches. Heck, I would take that knockout loss for that amount of cash in a heartbeat.

Bosslogic’s poster gets to the heart of this fight with those dollar bills:

White also addressed the chance of McGregor using mixed martial arts (MMA) techniques in the fight:

“That will not happen. That will not happen. First of all, that is absolutely in the contract, number one, and number two, this is a boxing match under the Nevada State Athletic Commission, under Nevada boxing rules, and when you talk about a guy of Floyd Mayweather’s level and value in the sport, the lawsuit that would happen if that ever happened… Conor likes money and Conor would depart with a lot of money if that ever happened, so, that will not happen.”

Everyone on the call agreed the negotiations went extraordinarily smooth. Dana also discussed boxing fans being haters about this fight being made. Speaking of haters, Conor McGregor is setting out to make himself as many as possible by posting a picture with Floyd Sr. instead of Jr. Ostensibly, this is a jab at Floyd’s age.

If anyone bets on combat sports at all, now is the time to jump on Mayweather. At these odds, he’s radically undervalued and the surest bet possible in boxing.

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Insomnia

Stipe wants in on the action:

So does Jessica Eye

Flying under the radar is this important title bout in the works:

The real reason Conor didn’t want to play soccer against Jose Aldo during their first world tour...

Sage Northcutt training montage:

Oatmeal pants

Is Meisha Tate just exploring every career option in existence now? Budweiser delivery driver? Also, yes, no beer belly here.

Invicta FC champion Megan Anderson

Teruto bulking up

Andre Fili is looking for a UFC 214 opponent after Doo Ho Choi pulled out with injury. Artem Lobov says he is unavailable because he’s training with McGregor for Mayweather.

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Slips, Rips, and KO Clips

Right in the family jewels! And it doesn’t look like he’s wearing a cup. This defines ball busting ... literally.

It sounds exactly the same as popping a sandwich bag. I’m in pain just thinking about that fact.

This hurts!

This cracked me up:

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Good Reads

• Great explanation by Dave Meltzer as to why this kind of crossover superfight was impossible in the past (but possible now).
• This video of Cody Garbrandt drunk-wrestling his TAM buddies is as homo-erotic as anything MMA I’ve seen. Plus, as TJ points out, shouldn’t he be healing up from that back injury?
• This is the worst take I’ve heard on the Reebok deal -- Joe Lauzon claims fighters griping about Reebok hurt sales and possible future sponsorships from other companies. He’s got it exactly backward; fighters are not culpable for a bad deal they had no part in negotiating, that ended their opportunities to land future sponsorships on their own; this toxic deal started the griping, not the other way around. Moreover, the boring, vanilla gear, which failed to live up to promises made by Reebok and the UFC, is responsible for bad sales and poor fan image. Blaming the fighters for speaking out about this is exactly the wrong response.

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Podcasts and Video

Jack Slack’s podcast, Fights Gone By:

Heavy Hands!

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Random Land

Ant-Man has nothing on this small savage

Stay woke, Maniacs! Follow me on Twitter @Vorpality