It's dead.
The highly anticipated rematch between Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor will not go down at UFC 200 officially, promotion president Dana White announced Friday during a press conference in Las Vegas. White said the UFC is working on finding Diaz a new opponent.
"Nate Diaz wants to fight at UFC 200 and he will fight at UFC 200," White said.
The entire saga began Tuesday when McGregor seemed to announce an impromptu retirement on Twitter. Hours later, White explained on ESPN that McGregor had been pulled from the bout, because he would not fulfill promotional obligations this week in Las Vegas.
White said McGregor has been officially ruled out of UFC 200.
"I just don't see how that's fair," White said. ... "It's just part of the deal. These guys came.
"You think I don't want Conor to fight? Of course, I do. It's just not right."
In a statement posted to Facebook on Thursday, McGregor said that he wanted to concentrate on training after losing to Diaz at UFC 196 in March and did not want to go through with a mini media tour this week and next in Vegas, Stockton, Calif., and New York. McGregor said he offered to do promotion in May, just not right now. McGregor is currently training in Iceland.
"Is it too much to ask to shoot a commercial or do the promotion for the fight?" White asked Friday.
McGregor tweeted Thursday night that the ball was in the UFC's court to keep the fight on. But that won't happen now. White confirmed the fight is officially off Friday.
"We gave Conor every opportunity in the world to get here," White said.
White said that McGregor's next fight will be against the winner of an interim featherweight title fight between Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar, which also takes place at UFC 200. McGregor is, of course, the UFC featherweight champion who was moving to welterweight to fight Diaz for a second straight time.
The UFC boss added that McGregor will likely fight before the UFC's debut in New York City in November and the promotion has other plans for the Madison Square Garden card.