Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz dug deep to produce an instant classic

Sometimes these sequels just don’t play out. After a holy grail of a first fight, the rematch between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar was a mostly limp affair in which Bonnar was decisioned and ultimately popped for an anabolic steroid. Speed 2: Cruise Control not only disgraced audiences but it brought into question the whole idea of story extension. It was hard to truly know if Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz would fizzle similarly, especially after all the talk and theatrics, or if it would shine in a way as to make a trilogy fight inevitable.It shined.It shined so freaking hard. What a fight. UFC 202 burst the expectations of even the most optimistic fightgoer. For all that Diaz and McGregor purported to be, they were more. They were as big as their most delusional daydreams. If the heart of man can shine through in a fight — and really, what is competitive fighting meant to be other than a communication of heart? — both shined through in ways that declaring a loser becomes unimportant. There really are no losers in a fight like that. In the end, McGregor prevailed on the scorecards with a majority decision, and it was just. But for a fight to become a classic, it requires a sense of togetherness out on that brink — a stretching of thresholds, and a giving over to reckless …

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