After months of speculation and a week’s worth of utter chaos, UFC 200 finally got its main event on Wednesday and—hold on—let me make sure I have all this right…
Jon Jones is in, crashing the party at the last minute (no pun intended) to save the fight company from its own stubbornness with his much-ballyhooed rematch against Daniel Cormier for the disputed light heavyweight title.
Conor McGregor is out, after being unable to come to an agreement with the UFC on how many press conferences he would attend.
Also, Cormier is apparently the bad guy in all this. So, that’s going to take some getting used to.
Hold up, though, where’s Nate Diaz? Oh, he’s “on vacation” after refusing to make nice with his bosses and accept a fight with anyone besides McGregor? Cool. I’m glad some things never change:
The rest of this stuff is all sort of difficult to wrap my mind around.
Granted, the announcement that the Jones-Cormier rematch would serve as UFC 200’s new headliner on July 9 isn’t that surprising on its own. After Jones coasted past Ovince Saint Preux last weekend and it became clear the UFC wasn’t going to budge on its lockout of McGregor, there weren’t a ton of good alternatives.
You have to admit, though, it represents a startling, full-circle turnaround for all three of these dudes.
For starters, just think where Jones was almost exactly a year ago.
In mid-April 2015, he had just fled the scene of a car accident in his hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jones was about to turn himself in to police on felony hit-and-run charges, which prompted the UFC to strip him of his title and place him on a suspension that at the time was termed “indefinite.”
In a larger sense, Jones was viciously—and perhaps unfairly—unpopular with a certain segment of MMA fans. He was already just a couple of months removed from the revelation he’d tested positive for cocaine during the lead-up to his win over Cormier at UFC 182, and it felt as though he had never emerged from the long shadow of UFC 151’s cancellation back in 2012.
He was the best fighter in the world, but he just couldn’t get it together outside the Octagon. Even if he did, he was never going to be Mr. Popularity.
Fast-forward 365-ish days and here Jones is, potentially the savior of the UFC’s biggest fight card of the year, poised to be (along with Jim Miller) one of only two athletes to appear at both UFCs 100 and 200, as well as on the verge of regaining his championship.
Is it possible Jones comes out of all this as—gasp!—a fan favorite? That would be perhaps the strangest development of all.
Meanwhile, an equally comprehensive change may also be afoot for McGregor, though arguably in the opposite direction.
He was the picture of a company man and was largely being heralded as the UFC’s next big star this time last year. He and featherweight champion Jose Aldo had just completed a gala “world tour” for their scheduled fight at UFC 189, and the entire industry was riding high on McGregor Mania.
Aldo would ultimately pull out of that meeting with an injury, only to be knocked stiff in 13 seconds by McGregor at UFC 194.
All seemed right with the Irishman’s world. Mystic Mac and the UFC, it appeared, would go on making beautiful music together for the foreseeable future.
Now? Things are a lot more uncertain.
UFC President Dana White has been careful not to bury McGregor since the fighter abruptly announced his retirement on Twitter last week. Even as the dispute between the athlete and the organization becomes clearer, White continues to insist that he and McGregor are on good terms and that the featherweight champion will fight soon at an upcoming event.
"Conor's his own guy, he's going to do what he's going to do but he's not fighting on [UFC] 200,” White told TMZ Wednesday, per Yahoo Sports' Andreas Hale. “Listen, he'll fight on 201, 202, 203, whatever, I don't know when, but we'll get it figured out."
That's all fine and good, but I'd be surprised if the two guys will be taking any more Ferrari rides together in the near future. And as for McGregor’s fans? Many are obviously sticking by him, though after the misinformation and PR mistakes of the last week, you could understand if some people are feeling a little fed up with the guy at the moment.
Then you have Cormier, who appears to have switched places with Jones in the court of public opinion so completely that the story of their rivalry might as well be another Freaky Friday remake.
A year ago, Cormier was one of the more universally loved figures in the light heavyweight division. He was the thoughtful veteran with the inspiring personal story—a budding TV personality who merely had the tough luck to come along at the same time as the greatest 205-pounder ever.
Something changed for DC after the UFC stripped Jones of the title. When Cormier fought and defeated Anthony Johnson to seize control of the vacant championship at UFC 187, people met the accomplishment mostly with scorn.
Jones never lost the title inside the cage, so many fans saw Cormier as an illegitimate champion. Much of the political capital he previously enjoyed seemed to disappear along with the victory.
On Wednesday, Jones' home state of New York welcomed him back as a conquering hero for the first press conference since the rematch was officially confirmed for July. Cormier spent the presser getting booed out of the building.
So, that’s different.
With all this topsy-turvy change underway, it’s getting hard to know what to believe in. Times were so much simpler a year ago when all these men appeared content to just go on playing their well-established roles in the UFC.
Jones was the unpopular MMA genius.
Cormier was the likable perennial runner-up.
McGregor was the promotional wunderkind.
Spin things forward to the present day and the only constant has proved to be change.
And Nate Diaz.
At least we’ll always have Diaz.
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