It doesn’t sound like longtime UFC commentator Joe Rogan likes Conor McGregor’s chances in the expected rematch with Nate Diaz at UFC 200 in July.
Rogan spoke about the potential McGregor-Diaz II fight, as well as their first fight earlier this month, during a recent edition of his “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast.
Regarding their first fight, Rogan knew that Diaz was the wrong guy for McGregor to go to the ground with.
“If it goes to the ground? Oh, that’s the wrong guy,” Rogan said. “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.”
Rogan continued, “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 [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 f**king deep end jump.'”
Rogan also spoke about their rumored second meeting, which is expected to be announced as the UFC 200 main event on July 9th. According to Rogan, McGregor can still knock out anyone in the game, but with Diaz coming into the rumored second fight with a full training camp, he’s gonna need some good luck to pull it off.
“He might knock [Diaz] out,” Rogan said of McGregor. “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.”
