The fallout of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s decision to replace Conor McGregor’s canceled UFC 200 main event with the Jon Jones-Daniel Cormier light-heavyweight title rematch is uncertainty for McGregor.
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UFC president Dana White has announced Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz are officially out of UFC 200.
McGregor was scheduled to fight Nate Diaz at the landmark pay-per-view event in Las Vegas on 9 July, but was taken off the bill after refusing to fulfil obligatory media duties.
The whole turn-of-events forced White to remove the coveted McGregor/Diaz main event of UFC 200 in favor of a Jon Jones/Daniel Cormier rematch-despite a confusing tweet Monday by McGregor that said he was back on for UFC 200.
“UFC 200 has been interesting to say the least putting this thing together”, White said.
But after Jones beat Ovince Saint Preux for the UFC interim light heavyweight title, the fight has now been rescheduled for the top UFC event of the year.
Cormer and Jones fought back in January 2015 in a competitive affair which saw Jones take a unanimous decision win over Cormier to retain his title.
Jones is ranked No. 1 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA light-heavyweight rankings, and Cormier is No. 2.
McGregor was due to face Nate Diaz in an eagerly-anticipated rematch following his shock defeat at the end of past year.
The fight holds considerable intrigue, considering this is Jones’s shot at redemption following his arrest in Albuquerque, New Mexico previous year on a hit-and-run charge. I told him what the deal was. That seemingly put the nail in the coffin on there being any chance of McGregor making back onto the card, despite the fighter’s recent claim to the contrary.
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There has been some confusion around the fight as Jones was earlier reported to be set to miss six months of action. 200 is the fight everybody been looking forward to for a long time. McGregor was removed from the card when he declined to attend the UFC 200 launch press conference in Las Vegas last week.
