LAS VEGAS — Miesha Tate’s everlasting grip caused Holly Holm to lose hers on the Ultimate Fighting Championship belt, and Nate Diaz quieted the organization’s Conor McGregor attraction.
UFC 196 at MGM Grand became a night of upsets Saturday as Tate wrested the women’s bantamweight belt from Holm and Diaz made McGregor pay for his 25-pound move up in weight by causing him to tap out in the second round.
Ireland’s popular and quick-witted McGregor, the featherweight (145 pounds) champion who opted to move up to 170 pounds to fight replacement foe Diaz because of lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos’ foot injury, was wobbled and weakened by a hard Diaz punch earlier in the second round.
Diaz (20-10), a former UFC lightweight title challenger from Stockton, Calif., got the better of McGregor as the stand-up action continued.
Then, when McGregor tried to shoot for a takedown, Diaz gladly accepted the turn to his jiu jitsu specialty and delivered a rear-naked chokehold that forced McGregor (19-3) to tap out 4 minutes 12 seconds into the round.
“Are you surprised?” Diaz said to the crowd after landing the fight less than two weeks ago. “It was a slow start for me. When I’m not in the best shape … I start slow.
When the fight went to the canvas, “I knew I had it,” said Diaz, trained by members of the Gracie family who brought UFC to America. “My jiu jitsu’s always there when I hit the ground. I’m a warrior. There’s a new king, right here.”
McGregor can now choose to fight Dos Anjos (at 155 pounds) in July or return to defend his featherweight belt.
“I took a chance,” moving up in weight, McGregor said. “It didn’t work out. I’ll come back.”
The other stunner happened because Holm couldn’t stave off Tate’s chokehold and, more importantly, attached uncertainty to the fight everyone wanted to see most — Holm’s rematch with Ronda Rousey.
Leaving sick looks on the faces of UFC executives, Tate took down Holm in the final two minutes of the fifth and final round and produced a fight-ending chokehold on Holm that complicates plans for Holm’s mega-million-dollar rematch with Rousey in the fall.
“We had a great gameplan, I knew I had to be patient … and find the perfect moment,” Tate said.
The end, after Holm failed to flip Tate off her and wound up allowing Tate a stronger choking position, came 3:30 into the fifth found.
“She has a lot of heart, I respect her so much as a champion for stepping in there,” Tate said.
In her second UFC title shot — she has lost twice overall to Rousey — Tate (18-5) seemed headed to losing a decision to Holm, appearing beat in three of the first four rounds because of the striking and kicking prowess that won Holm the Rousey bout.
Holm (10-1), fighting for the first time since her upset of Rousey in November, won a slow first round with more strikes and a couple clean kicks, one to Tate’s midsection.
Tate responded with an early takedown in the second and delivered extended punishment to Holm, including fists and elbows to the head.
Holm wiggled slightly loose, but Tate hung on, mounting Holm from behind and seeking a clinching choke.
Holm’s survival, by desperately pulling Tate’s arm free of her neck late in the round, allowed her to fight in her preferred stand-up method in the third and she struck Tate with more punches and kicks.
In the fourth, Holm fended off two Tate takedown tries and punished the challenger with some punches on the second attempt while remaining atop Tate. Another late combination of punches sealed the round for the champion.
The victory by the 3-1 underdog came after Tate fell out of position to fight Rousey last year, as UFC matchmakers and executives passed her over for Holm, a former world champion boxer.
Holm sought Tate as a means to stay active after Rousey said she needed to delay a planned rematch at UFC 200 in July to pursue film work for a remake of the Patrick Swayze film “Roadhouse.”
Now, the option of Tate-Holm II in July contends with the possibilities of Tate-Rousey III or Holm-Rousey II in the fall.
Brazil’s women’s bantamweight Amanda Nunes opened the pay-per-view portion of the card by defeating Valentina Shevchenko by unanimous decision, 29-28, 29-27, 29-27.
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