IT was a night of upsets.
That’s what happened in a huge Ultimate Fighting Championship card Sunday as two underdogs withstood two champions to emerge with the biggest victories of their careers.
In UFC 196, Nate Diaz scored a stunning upset win over featherweight king Conor McGregor with a scintillating submission victory via a rear-naked choke at 4:12 of the second round to deal the Irish superstar his first loss in six years in a non-title welterweight bout in front of a pumped-up MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada yesterday.
In the other featured fight, Miesha Tate did the exact same thing, submitting erstwhile champion Holly Holm at the 3:30 of the fifth and final round, also with a rear-naked choke to claim the elusive UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship.
Diaz and Tate came in as huge underdogs and both came out with a lot to prove. And they certainly did not disappoint as they shone bright in the UFC’s biggest card thus far in 2016.
After landing some significant strikes late in Round 2 to turn the tide, Diaz had the upperhand as he got McGregor wobbled. He followed this up nicely when the action hit the ground with a sneaky choke from behind to force the fighting Irish’s hand to tap out as he claimed a spectacular victory that will push him to main event status.
Originally, the scheduled fight was between McGregor and lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos in a champion-against-champion super fight, but the latter got injured three weeks prior to this event, forcing the UFC to find a replacement and Diaz answered the call and got the job done emphatically.
Despite the loss, McGregor remains the featherweight champion and is expected to go back to his true weight class.
Tate, after being bypassed for a title shot late last year despite her four-fight winning streak, made the most out of her second crack at the belt when she went toe-to-toe with Holm in a long fight before showcasing her superior skills on the ground to dismantle her foe and claim the title she’s been chasing.