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Conor McGregor's famed trash talk has found its match

LAS VEGAS — It is a weapon that’s proven as vicious as his considerable left fist. Employed properly, it can change an opponent’s game plans and force fatal mistakes. It’s been one of Conor McGregor’s most effective tools during his UFC career.

Only it doesn’t seem to work against Nate Diaz. At least it didn’t in their first fight, a Diaz victory, and appeared useless here Thursday at a prefight news conference to hype the rematch at UFC 202 in August.

McGregor’s famed trash talk has finally found its match in the sleepy-eyed veteran from Stockton, Calif. And that isn’t a positive for the Irishman who is trying to figure out a way to beat a taller, bigger and more-well rounded fighter last seen choking him into submission.

“I will take this man out,” McGregor declared at one point in the direction of Diaz, who took the boast so seriously he never even looked up from his smart phone.

McGregor kept trying, of course. He called Diaz ugly, called him Mexican (Diaz is biracial), downplayed the last fight, ridiculed Diaz for, in McGregor’s opinion, turning down other fights because he fears risk, and detailing an entirely new system of training that McGregor promised would work next time around.

“I’m going to tee off on him,” McGregor said.

Waves and waves of such bluster generated … nothing.

Diaz barely flinched, smiled maybe once and spent most of the time either ignoring McGregor in favor of scrolling through social media while seated disinterestedly up on a stage. At other times he claimed he couldn’t hear what anyone was saying because of the acoustics inside T-Mobile Arena.

“This arena is beautiful, but these microphones suck, I can’t hear [expletive],” Diaz said.

Even McGregor had to laugh at that one.

“These mics are [expletive] up,” he agreed.

Nate Diaz, left, and Conor McGregor, right, are separated by Dana White. (AP)
Nate Diaz, left, and Conor McGregor are separated by Dana White. (AP)

If this was the start of this fight then advantage, once again, for Diaz, who, according to plan, proved unmoved by McGregor. Diaz is convinced that McGregor arrives with a well-designed script to rattle opponents who then get so enraged they fall into his traps.

That, most notably, was true of Jose Aldo, who McGregor verbally assaulted for months, mocked his Brazilian heritage, stole his championship belt and threw darts at a picture of him. Aldo responded by running directly at McGregor at the start of their UFC 194 fight and walked into a straight left. He was knocked out in 13 seconds flat. It was his first loss in a decade.

“Aldo got caught up and was aggressive and tried to kill him,” Diaz told Yahoo Sports. “He got mad. I’m never going to do that. I’m never mad. I may look mad.”

Diaz may look like a lot of things, but he’s smarter and more strategic than people realize. If McGregor has gained previous advantages by spewing insults then why allow it?

“I see the other guys get into it with him,” Diaz said. “You listen to him, how much of that is really real? A lot of it is rehearsed stuff. I [don’t] want to get into it. He can say all the funny [expletive] he wants.”

Diaz counter-attacked before UFC 196 by mocking McGregor’s sparring partners as too small and too weak to properly prepare him for the fight. Diaz believed that planting that seed – a fact, in his mind, not just some insult – helped.

“He had to think of that and go, ‘Oh, [expletive],’ ” Diaz said. “Whether he realized it or not, he hadn’t been told some real [expletive]. [In previous fights] he had guys going, ‘[Expletive] you,’ going back at him. He was laughing and all. [With me] he’s thinking like, ‘[Expletive], now I’m stressed.’ ”

Diaz’s prediction proved true. McGregor’s gumption drew him into fighting Diaz at 170 pounds and he wasn’t prepared to knock out a man of that size.

Learning from his mistake, McGregor says he has brought in middleweights and guys over 6-feet tall to mimic Diaz’s frame for his 202 training camp. On Thursday, Diaz said they look like good sparring partners and dropped the line of attack.

Part of this is specific to McGregor, ignoring him may be the best way to actually get in his head. Part of it is because Diaz can’t stand most media-driven questions. He has laid down plenty of smack and outrageous challenges in his day – as outrageous as McGregor has ever been. At this point, against this opponent, though, he sees a lot of it as an outside annoyance created by the media.

“It is high school that never ended,” Diaz said. “Remember in high school, you had to fight this guy after school. And you’re in fourth period you go back to your class and you think, ‘Oh man, [expletive], all these kids are coming.’ And then you get homeboy in the corner coming up to you and saying, ‘What’s up, you ready to do this after school? He said he’s going to whip your ass.’

“You look at them, ‘Get the [expletive] away from me. How about you fight someone after school.’ And that’s how [the media] and all these people are like, ‘He said this and she said this.’ ”

So Diaz said nothing, heard nothing, reacted to nothing. It was so effective that over the course of the nearly half-hour news conference McGregor slowly lost his momentum. He thrives on chaos and the exchange of quick-witted ridiculousness. Diaz was so mellow it all fell apart. How are you preparing for McGregor, Diaz was asked?

“I’m training to fight him,” he said, before putting down the mic and picking back up his phone.

If Conor McGregor is going to avenge that defeat, he’s going to have to do it without the benefit of one of most effective tools. Nate Diaz isn’t playing, not here and not in the Octagon.