During their massive rematch at UFC 202, Nate Diaz was knocked down by Conor McGregor three times during the first two rounds... Or did he?

Brendan Schaub was at the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, and while discussing options for McGregor at 155, he mentioned an interesting conversation he had with Diaz after the fight.

“I saw Nate at the grocery store randomly, he said he was falling on purpose to dupe Conor. He says ‘I know the first three rounds, he’s so fast and he will be tough, so when he hit me, the plan was to fall down to get him to follow me down.’ He says ‘I couldn’t take him down, so the plan was to get me follow me down there.’”

“That’s a risky game plan, but that’s from the horse’s mouth,” Schaub said.

“Is that one of those ‘I meant to do that’ things?” Rogan replied with a laugh.

“I don’t know. I don’t know Nate Diaz enough to be like ‘are you serious?’”

Nate didn’t seem to be badly hurt on the times he went down, but whether or not he actually fell on purpose after taking those big shots, it didn’t really help his case. McGregor fought very patiently and never tried to follow him to the ground, and judges all weighed them as legit knockdowns.

Watch two of the three knockdowns in slow motion below.