Nate Diaz is struggling to understand the debate over whether Conor McGregor should have tapped out or gone to sleep from a fight-ending submission in UFC 196’s main event earlier this month.

After former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm lost her title by going unconscious to a rear-naked choke applied by Miesha Tate in UFC 196’s co-headliner, McGregor (19-3 MMA, 7-1 UFC) lost to Diaz (19-10 MMA, 14-8 UFC) by the same maneuver shortly after.

UFC President Dana White called Holm a “gangster” for going out on her shield and not tapping to the choke. Others have criticized McGregor, the UFC featherweight champ who moved to welterweight to face Diaz, for tapping too quickly, or even tapping at all.

Diaz said he doesn’t see it that way, though. The situations Holm and McGregor found themselves in were vastly, he says, and is adament there shouldn’t be a lack of pride in a fighter giving in when they’ve been bested inside the octagon.

“If you’ve got to tap out, you’ve got to tap out,” Diaz told MMAjunkie. “I think Holly, she thought she was maybe going to get out. She had already gotten out of one (choke earlier in the fight) and she thought, ‘I’m not quitting.’ McGregor, he was (expletive) done. All the way done. It’s all right. He had to tap out because there was no getting out of that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with tapping out.”

Diaz’s finish of McGregor marked his record-setting ninth submission victory in modern UFC competition. That means he knows better than anyone on the roster what it’s like to lock up a choke so tight or twist a limb in such grizzly fashion that an opponent is forced to exit the contest.

He said that’s the position McGregor was in from the choke, and there was no getting out. To make matters worse, “The Notorious” was clearly affected by some big shots from Diaz on the feet moments before the finish.

Diaz said there’s no shame in deciding to tap out, but in his mind there’s an easy way to avoid having to make such a difficult choice: Don’t get put in a position where you’re forced too.

“It’s a fight against the best fighters in the world; you’ve got to tap to that (expletive),” Diaz said. “You ain’t getting out of it. You can tap out, or you can go to sleep. It’s (expletive) the same (expletive). You tap out if you’re caught. The thing is, that’s what I think, is don’t get caught.”

For complete coverage of UFC 196, check out the UFC Events section of the site.