It has been hard to get a word in edgewise so far.
Granted, UFC 200 is still a bit more than two months away, but to date most of the pre-fight attention has been swallowed up by one or two main storylines—and just a few loudmouthed fighters.
That’s probably to be expected when the first scheduled headliner was Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz, only to later be replaced by a rematch between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier. That’s a foursome nobody would want to be stuck in an elevator alongside.
Even if McGregor, Diaz, Jones and Cormier are doing most of the talking prior to this event, fact is UFC 200 is stacked with compelling narratives. The dirty little secret of UFC pay-per-views is that the top dogs get all the credit and the lion's share of the money from sales, but nobody buys just to watch one fight.
UFC 200 is no exception. There’s a lot percolating just beneath the surface of this event.
So, what are the best under-the-radar storylines leading up to what could be the biggest card in company history?
Glad you asked…
Yeah, this isn’t really “UFC 200” but whatever
The UFC 200 Wikipedia page informs us that this is actually the 363rd event held under the UFC banner since the Gracie family brought MMA to the United States in the form of a no-hold-barred infomercial back in 1993. Once you delve into the many levels of programming the fight company’s offerings have splintered into during the last few years—Fox Sports 1 events, Fox Network Events, Fight Pass events, pay-per-views, etc.—it starts to feel a little arbitrary that this particular event has been tabbed "UFC 200."
That doesn’t even begin to consider the cancellation of UFC 151 in 2012—when the organization just skipped the event and plodded forward with UFC 152 three weeks later. Or earlier this year, when injuries to both Cain Velasquez and Fabricio Werdum forced UFC 196 to be rebranded as UFC Fight Night 82.
That set off a chain reaction where UFC 197 became UFC 196 and UFC 198 became—look never mind. You start thinking too deeply about this stuff and it's only going to spoil the fun. Our advice? Just sit back and enjoy the show. Who's counting, right?
Miesha Tate gets the chance to come full circle
If there’s a true feel-good story near the top of the UFC 200 card, it’s got to be Tate. She has been the UFC women’s bantamweight division’s second-best and second best-known fighter since its inception back in 2012. For the entire lifespan of the weight class, however, she had been summarily overshadowed by this other fighter you might have heard of—Ronda Rousey.
With Rousey now out of the picture, at least temporarily, Tate finally gets the chance to shine. After taking the title off Holly Holm at UFC 196, she’ll try to become the first woman not named Rousey to successfully defend the bantamweight championship against Amanda Nunes on July 9.
If she can pull it off, perhaps she can take a piece of ownership over the division where she has toiled so thanklessly these past few years. The hottest topic of conversation will continue to concern when—or if—Rousey will return, but so long as the former champ remains missing in action, it’ll be Tate’s division until further notice.
Cain Velasquez might be down to his last chance at greatness
Velasquez was once unilaterally regarded as the greatest heavyweight in the world and, perhaps, a shoo-in to become the greatest heavyweight of all time. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out that way.
This man has been his own worst enemy.
A pure inability to stay healthy has doomed much of Velasquez's UFC career so far. Now 33 years old, he’s currently mired in another long stretch of inactivity. He will have been out of action more than a year by the time he meets Travis Browne at UFC 200. His only fight during 2015 was the submission loss to Fabricio Werdum that cost him his title. That one came only after he sat out all of 2014.
We can’t stress this enough: This Browne fight? This baby is a must win for Velasquez. At this stage in his career a loss could permanently doom him to the what-might-have-been file. That’s not a place anyone wants to be, let alone someone who once enjoyed as much potential as Cardio Cain.
Cat Zingano vs. Julianna Pena: Two women who desperately need a win
In an alternate universe where the UFC took the time and effort to build the women’s bantamweight division into a deep and vibrant place to celebrate its female athletes, Zingano might have been a major player. Unfortunately, the UFC has long had eyes only for Rousey, while Zingano has had a run of Velasquez-esque inactivity.
She’s fought just once each year since the end of 2010 and has currently been on the shelf since UFC 184 in February 2015, when she lost to Rousey in just 14 seconds. Fortunately for her, the 33-year-old Colorado native holds Octagon victories over both Tate and Nunes, which kind of gives her an ironclad argument to become No. 1 contender if she can notch a win at UFC 200.
Pena, meanwhile, seemed like an exiting young prospect in a division that sorely needed one when she won season 18 of The Ultimate Fighter. Unfortunately, she suffered a major knee injury in early 2014 and missed the entire year. She returned in 2015, with back-to-back wins, but in December was arrested after an alleged street fight in her hometown of Spokane, Washington.
It’s hard to know what to make of either of these women at this point, but if Zingano and/or Pena mean to regain some momentum before the division moved on without them, now is the time.
Sage Northcutt’s quest to be “Super” again
To date, Northcutt’s stardom has been based largely on his good looks, crazy flips and the fact the UFC keeps assuring us he is, in fact, a star. Things started well enough, with Northcutt nabbing two wins inside the Octagon in 2015. At the beginning of this year, however, he lost to short-notice replacement opponent Bryan Barberena in a welterweight bout.
Northcutt is just barely 20 years old, so the defeat certainly doesn’t spell doom for his budding MMA career. You know what, though? If much of your appeal is based on the fight company constantly telling us you’re going to be special, it’d be best to get back to the business of being special as soon as possible.
At UFC 200, Northcutt faces Enrique Marin, whose MMA record is a middling 8-3 and who is coming off a split-decision loss in his UFC debut.
So it looks like Northcutt will have a good chance to get back on track.
Johny Hendricks tries to get back to .500
Hard to believe we’re talking about Hendricks as a guy who absolutely needs to pick up a win at UFC 200, but things haven’t gone as planned for the former Oklahoma State wrestler in recent times. When he meets up with Kelvin Gastelum on July 9, Hendricks is just trying to improve to 3-3 dating back to November 2013.
The drop has been precipitous. At once time, Hendricks seemed like the heir apparent to Georges St-Pierre’s welterweight dominance. After trading wins with Robbie Lawler during 2014, however, an injury-riddled 2015 and a disastrous first-round TKO loss to Stephen Thompson to begin 2016 dashed much of our expectations for him. At this point, Hendricks finds himself fully in rebuilding mode.
It’ll take more than a win over Gastelum to get him back to the top, but this still shapes up as a fight he absolutely can’t afford to lose.
Jim Miller celebrates a century in the UFC (sort of)
Barring the sudden reemergence of St-Pierre—or, for that matter, Brock Lesnar—it appears Jones and Miller will be the only two athletes to appear at both UFCs 100 and 200. It’s a tremendous accomplishment for both men, but with Jones gobbling up the majority of the headlines already, let’s take just a second to give some props to perhaps the hardest-working man in the lightweight division.
There was a time back in 2011 when it seemed like Miller was on the verge of something big at 155 pounds. He’d won seven fights in a row—kicked off by a unanimous-decision win over Mac Danzig at UFC 100—and appeared primed to make a big-time run.
Alas, he lost to Benson Henderson in May of that year and then to Nate Diaz in a title eliminator the following spring. Including that defeat by Bendo, Miller has gone just 5-6-1 since. Still, after nearly eight years and 22 fights in the Octagon, it’s hard not to marvel at the man's longevity.
He fights Takanori Gomi at UFC 200.
Is this the last ride for Daniel Cormier?
Now that their rematch has been confirmed as the main event, Cormier’s bitter feud with Jones will gobble up most of the attention headed into UFC 200. Cormier lost to Jones at UFC 182 before capturing the vacant light heavyweight title at UFC 187. Since Jones never lost the belt inside the cage, many of the pre-fight storylines will focus on his quest to regain the championship he lost in the wake of a hit-and-run accident in Albuquerque, New Mexico, last April.
But there are compelling things going on with Cormier too. At 37 years old, it’s unclear how long he’ll soldier on in his MMA career. In fact, it’s not out of the question that this latest go ‘round with Jones could be the former Olympic wrestler’s swan song.
Best-cast scenario for Cormier is he beats Jones on July 9 and forces a trilogy with the greatest 205-pounder of all time. If he manages to do that, then Cormier can be assured he’ll walk away with this head held high, as one of the best 205-pounders ever and as part of one of the greatest rivalries in the history of the sport.
Also, he'll likely be a relatively rich man, to boot.
Dana White says “We’re not done”
When McGregor’s rematch with Diaz was scrubbed and Jones-Cormier II was promoted to UFC 200 main event, company president Dana White promised they weren’t done inking fights.
“We expect [UFC 200] to be big and it will be big,” White said at the introductory event press conference, per Sherdog.com's Tristen Critchfield. “We just added this fight [Cormier-Jones] to the card and we’re not done.”
So, what gives? What other treasures might this gala fight card ultimately hold for fans? Speculation has been hot and heavy that former welterweight champion St-Pierre might return, perhaps against Lawler in a quest to regain his title. CM Punk was originally linked to UFC 200, but then had to be removed from the card due to a back injury.
What other tricks can the UFC pull out of its sleeve before the summer extravaganza? That story is still developing.
Derek Brunson bids to move into the middleweight elite.
The former Strikeforce fighter Brunson has been operating under the radar for most of his UFC career. If he beats Gegard Mousasi at UFC 200, however, it’s going to be impossible to keep Brunson out of the 185-pound spotlight.
Since losing to Yoel Romero in January 2014, Brunson has rattled off four straight victories over fairly stiff competition. Mousasi, however, will be the toughest of the bunch. The 30-year-old Iranian will play the role of gatekeeper here. Win, and Brunson must be regarded among the middleweight elite moving forward. Lose, and he’ll be remanded back to the pack.
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