Conor McGregor has been bombarded by internet warriors and armchair analysts since his UFC 196 submission loss to Nate Diaz, with many of the jibes centering around the fact he tapped to Diaz’s choke rather than going to sleep.
With Holly Holm refusing to tap and being choked to sleep by Miesha Tate in the UFC 196 co-main event, McGregor’s critics have held Holm’s gutsy performance up as an example that the Irishman should have followed – especially considering the heavy amount of trash he talked leading up to the fight against Diaz. But Diaz himself doesn’t agree with such nonsense.
“If you’ve got to tap out, you’ve got to tap out,” Diaz told MMAjunkie. “I think Holly, she thought she was maybe going to get out. She’d already gotten out of one (earlier in the fight) and she thought, ‘I’m not quitting.’ McGregor, he was f**king done. All the way done. It’s alright. He had to tap out because there was no getting out of that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with tapping out.”
UFC featherweight champ McGregor got the better of Diaz in the first round of their welterweight contest, but the tides turned in the second when Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Nate began to out-strike Conor before sinking in the rear naked choke on the ground.
“It’s a fight against the best fighters in the world; you’ve got to tap to that s**t,” Diaz said. “You ain’t getting out of it. You can tap out, or you can go to sleep. It’s f**king the same s**t. You tap out if you’re caught. The thing is – that’s what I think – is don’t get caught.”
