UFC President Dana White rules out McGregor-Diaz triology

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Bengaluru, October 18: UFC president Dana White rules out the possible Conor McGregor - Nate Diaz triology and says he can only see the lightweight champion fight the interim champ Tony Ferguson.

White shut down the idea of a potential third fight between McGregor and Diaz on the 'Pardon My Take' podcast.

"No, that's not true," White said of McGregor-Diaz III, per MMA Weekly's Ken Pishna. "Not true. It has literally not even been talked about."

McGregor and Diaz battled earlier at UFC 196 and UFC 202 welterweight fights, with Diaz taking the first bout via submission and 'The Notorious' returning the favour in the rematch via majority decision.

Diaz's last appearance in the octagon was the UFC 202 rematch in 2015, while McGregor's last bout in UFC was his lightweight title win against Eddie Alvarez in November 2016.

The current UFC lightweight champion, however, is recovering from his 10th round TKO loss to boxing great Floyd Mayweather Jr in the 'big money' fight.

McGregor flirted with a third fight against Diaz right before the boxing match with Mayweather, but the Irishman has recently taken to Twitter to provoke the newly-crowned interim lightweight champ Ferguson.

White said he would love to see McGregor fight Ferguson in Ireland but said the title unification bout will 'probably' be booked for Las Vegas.

"(Croke Parke) sounds great, but it's probably going to be Tony Ferguson in Las Vegas," he said.

"But we do want to do Croke Park. The reason we haven't done Croke Park with Conor is because we can't get it done over there. They have a curfew on what time you got to be out of there and noise ordinances."

According to an earlier interview from White, McGregor wants to return to the Octagon by the end of the year, which would coincide with the upcoming UFC 219 event - the last pay-per-view of the year - scheduled for December 30 at the T-Mobile Arena in Vegas.

"He wants to fight again this year," said White.

Ferguson called out McGregor after he defeated Kevin Lee to win the interim title, and he funnily called him 'McNugget' in the octagon interview and wants to fight the Irishman by the end of the year.