After a weekend of confusion, potential injuries and the whole Conor McGregor retirement saga, UFC 200 has its main event, finally. The announcement was made on Good Morning America with Cormier and Jones being low key to each other for a change.
“Me and my team have been working extensively on a strategy and game plan to beat Daniel Cormier. I got thrown a last minute change of opponent and felt I did great with it, given the circumstances. I’m ready to get back to my original plan, which is to dominate Daniel Cormier, again.”
Through all of this madness, Dana White has remained surprisingly even keel. Probably because he has a bonafide main event.
“UFC 200 has been interesting to say the least, putting this thing together. There’s been some crazy things that have gone on. Some ups and downs. Jon Jones just fought on Saturday night and won his fight against OSP. He’s been out for 15 months, and now he’s back, and he wants his light heavyweight UFC title back. So the main event will be Daniel Cormier versus Jon Jones.”
But, this isn’t a time for celebration. It’s great that we have the rematch between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier to look forward to this July, but alarm bells are ringing. Call it an MMA fan’s version of the Spidey Sense. Just look at what Cormier says in this fight announcement.
“I hadn’t decided to even fight yet.”
Did the UFC run this by him? And what about Jon Jones’ injured foot? He’s facing a six month suspension if his X-ray comes back positive.
Nope! I haven't gotten an x-ray but I'm already up and walking around. It'll be fine https://t.co/phqdQMhdYg
— BONY (@JonnyBones) April 27, 2016
So Jones feels fine, but he still hasn’t had his X-ray, and Daniel Cormier seemingly hasn’t had his MRI. This might be cause for concern considering the promotion has seen over 50 main event changes in the last few years. Still, if all goes to plan, UFC 200 is back on track with three title shots:
- Jones vs. Cormier to unify the light heavyweight titles.
- Frankie Edgar vs. Jose Aldo for the interim featherweight title.
- Amanda Nunes vs. Miesha Tate for the women’s bantamweight title.
Is this the UFC 200 we’ve been looking for? Am I an embattled, tired, war-torn and even bitter MMA fan when I say that this doesn’t seem to be enough for the biggest event in UFC history? Maybe it was the fact that UFC 100 had the Brock Lesnar factor. Maybe it’s Conor McGregor’s very real star power. Maybe it’s the UFC unable to convince me that these three fights will actually go down on July 9.
(Via MMA Fighting)