Conor McGregor wants to take part in the UFC's Power Slap league against his bitter rival Nate Diaz.
Former two-weight UFC champion McGregor suffered his first loss in the promotion to Diaz six years ago, with the American stepping in on 11 days' notice to submit McGregor when Rafael Dos Anjos pulled out of their lightweight title fight. Six months later, McGregor avenged his loss to Diaz and the pair have been backed to fight for the third time ever since.
Diaz, 37, parted ways with the UFC earlier this year having spent 15 years competing for the organisation, damaging his chances of a trilogy fight with McGregor. That could change now that McGregor has expressed his desire to compete in the "world’s premier competitive slapping promotion" against Diaz.
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"This power slap championships is growing on me," McGregor wrote. "Who doesn’t like watching good quality clatters hahaha. Is it a flip of a coin who gets to go first? How long do they have to recover before they get to throw their counter? Or is it over if they’re knocked out?"
Diaz is known for slapping his opponents and McGregor joked his old rival would have more chance of winning in the new league because of his trademark strike. "Me Vs Nate on it for the title hahahaha maybe that’s a title you’d have a better chance of coming close to winning Nate you little slapper hahahaha. Fascinating. I’m attending one of these 100%. Is this Dana’s? Wtf is this madness Dana hahaha. I’m in," he wrote.
UFC president Dana White said he was inspired to create the Power Slap league after being made aware of the huge social media metrics from other slapping promotions. "I started seeing some of these slap videos on social media then I started to do some research into the companies and promoters that were involved in it. First of all, I was blown away by the numbers. Some of these videos have like 300 million views," he said.
"This thing really works for social media but I thought it would be great for television if done the right way. We set out to get it regulated, for this to be a real sport it needs to be regulated by the athletic commission.
"The most important thing to us with everything is always the health and safety, now we've got the Nevada commission we will try and open it up in other states and territories."
