Former UFC champ Pat Miletich on Conor McGregor: ‘He’s going to get his a** beat by Nate again’

FORMER UFC welterweight champion Pat Miletich says history will repeat itself when Conor McGregor takes on Nate Diaz for a second time at UFC 202.

The UFC Hall of Famer, who also calls fights for AXS TV in the States, says that when it comes to elite-level MMA, size matters, and McGregor is simply too small to handle Diaz at 170lbs.

“He’s going to get his a** beat by Nate again,” he told Submission Radio this week.

“Some of the guys at 170 are cutting down from 210-215lbs. I mean, you’re talking skull fractures from punches from guys like that.

“The 170-pounders who walk around at 200, 200-plus could punch a heavyweight and break his jaw and knock him out.

“So these are explosive, very strong guys, who if Conor McGregor even remotely attempts to take them down, he’s going to get shut down. And if he gets hit with a three-punch combo, he’s going to the hospital.”

Despite picking Diaz in the rematch, Miletich admitted he’s a big fan of McGregor and the way he’s taken the sport’s popularity to the next level through the sheer force of his personality.

“I’ll tell you what though, I will say this, Conor McGregor has sold the sport, he’s sold himself,” he said.

“I think he’s brought some of the Chael Sonnen-WWE from Ireland into it, which is great and more power to him. I love the guy, actually.”

But despite that respect for McGregor’s star power, Miletich says it ultimately won’t help him on fight night against a bigger, stronger opponent in Diaz.

And he explained said that Diaz’s penchant for triathlons and distance running has a big part to play in the contest – both physically and mentally.

“I think Conor’s going to come in very motivated, bigger, stronger, but he’s not gonna be able to hurt Nate,” he said

“Look, I’m training for a 100-mile run in two-mile altitude. The Diaz brothers do stuff like that on a regular basis. You cannot get them tired, you cannot hurt them.

“What can Conor McGregor do to Nate Diaz, that doing a 50-mile or 75-mile run can’t do to him?

“There’s something different that happens mentally, and I’m learning that now, where training for a fight and getting in a cage is honestly, now when I look back on things, is kind of a joke.

“The mind games that you play with yourself when you go to war with yourself, when you’re running for 24 hours straight, and the demons that you deal with out on a country road in the middle of nowhere, while you’re running in 95-degree heat with 95 percent humidity and you’ve already been running for 60 miles and you know you’ve got 20, 30, 40 more to go.

“Outsmarting another human being, intimidating them and beating their a***s is really not that tough (by comparison).”

Nate Diaz v Conor McGregor 2 headlines UFC 202 on Saturday August 20 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.