Now that the rematch between Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor has been officially made for UFC 202 on Aug. 20 in Las Vegas, the strain between UFC president Dana White and the key principals seems to be over. At least for now.
And as far as the Instagram video that Diaz put out, of him hitting White with the so-called "Stockton Slap" to 2Pac's "Hit 'Em Up? Well, that was just a spur of the moment bit of fun between two old chums.
White explained how that whole thing came about as the inaugural guest on the UFC Unfiltered podcast.
"So what was happening is, we had just left and were heading back to the arena and we were on Crenshaw, and there was a place called the Turf Motel. It just came to me, I said pull the truck over, I want Nate to slap me. And Nate looked at me like, what the f---? You should have seen the look on his face when I said that. And then we pulled over and he started slapping away."
Diaz defeated McGregor at UFC 196 in March in a makeshift welterweight bout after McGregor’s original opponent — Rafael dos Anjos — fell out with an injury.
The UFC originally booked the rematch between Diaz and McGregor for UFC 200, which takes place on July 9. However, when McGregor refused to participate in the advance promotion of the event, the UFC removed the fight from the card and replaced it with Jon Jones’ rematch with Daniel Cormier.
Since then, the negotiations have taken some interesting terms. White was said to have stormed out of a lunch meeting with Diaz in Stockton trying to come to terms with the fight in late May. Diaz himself appeared on a special edition of The MMA Hour to explain his dissatisfaction with his current deal.
At UFC 199 on June 4, the rematch was officially announced for August.
When asked on the podcast if he’d allow other fighters to slap him the way Diaz got to, White laughed.
"Trust me, if I opened that one up they’d be lining up for days," he said.
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