Nate Diaz'€™s coach blames Conor McGregor loss on injuries and bad judging




Following a close majority decision loss to Conor McGregor in August, Nate Diaz revealed that he had faced several injuries during his training camp that may have hindered his performance in the five-round battle at UFC 202.

Never one to make excuses, Diaz played it off as just minor injuries that fighters face in almost every training camp. But now his coach Richard Perez has given details on just how bad things got for him in the weeks leading up to the McGregor rematch.

Perez, who handles Diaz's boxing ahead of his fights, says that the former "Ultimate Fighter" winner suffered a knee injury during the initial stages of his training camp, and that eventually gave way to a rib injury that virtually kept him out of the gym for several weeks before he re-faced McGregor.

If not for those injuries, Perez believes Diaz would have finished McGregor early in the fight just like he did the last time when he submitted the Irishman in the second round at UFC 196.

“They were bad," Perez said about Diaz's injuries when speaking to Submission Radio. "The knee was bad and the ribs were bad because when he hurt his knee, he couldn’t run. So then when it got a little better, he wanted to start sparring. And he’s not in shape because he wasn’t really doing much. You know, you work on a little bit of mitts and you work a little bit of sparring and he got better and better. And then when he got (Alan) Sanchez in there, he went a good four hard rounds and he was doing real good, but he was getting a little tired, and that’s when Sanchez caught him in the rib and that then put him out there for a while."

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