Everybody in the room heard Nate Diaz accusing Conor McGregor of taking steroids, while thousands of fans around the world watched it live.
Mud was thrown and Diaz will be pleased that the story is sticking around.
McGregor, who strongly denies the claim, was clearly rattled by having his name linked with any use of PEDs.
“Not me. Not me. I’m not on no steroids. What the f*ck are you talking about?” was The Notorious’ reply at the hastily arranged UFC 196 press conference.
McGregor will surely be livid, then, at a further heap of steroid accusations coming from Diaz’ coach Richard Perez. Asked by Submission Radio if he thought McGregor was on steroids, Perez said:
“Oh I sure do believe that, heck yeah. Some guys, they get busted; and to be honest with you, I know McGregor has got to be on some kind of steroids.
“He’s pretty big, and then all of a sudden jumping to 170? Yeah there’s no way, cause I mean, he was supposed to be fighting at 155.
“So if you think about it, he was focusing on training at 155. He only had two weeks to go. And all of a sudden he’s gonna jump to 170? So no, there’s something going on.
“But we’re still going to fight and that’s all there is to it.”
Perez feels McGregor’s rash response to Diaz’ claims only prove to him that something iffy is going on.
“When Nathan mentioned it to him, he got defensive, he got angry.
“If somebody would have told me that I was fighting and he told me, you know, steroids, I would laugh and say, ‘Yeah give me some more steroids, heck yeah, uh huh sure’.
“But he got defensive and mad, you know, ‘I’m not on steroids, I’m not on steroids!’
“You know, he was like trying to defend himself. So that, just his actions and the way he talked, there’s something behind that.”
A[nother] legal letter is surely going to follow from the McGregor camp.
