Just Put Conor McGregor Back on UFC 200 Already

It was an interesting weekend in MMA we just had. Jon Jones proved that time does not necessarily make the heart grow fonder by putting in a belabored performance against Ovince Saint Preux. Bellator just got Money for Nothing (or nothing for money) out of a poor showing for Ben Henderson against Andrey Koreshkov. Demetrious Johnson caused many people to mistime their bathroom breaks by ending his fight with Henry Cejudo in under 3 minutes.

But nobody cares about any of that because Conor McGregor, you guys.

CONOR MCGREGOR, YOU GUYS!

Oh Conor…if he was looking to prove that he has the entire MMA world eating out of his hand, what he did this week did just that.

All he had to do was send out a Tweet hinting at retirement to make everyone lose their minds. I mean, was he serious? What happened? Was he injured? Did he fail a drug test? Did he lose his passion for the sport and making ridiculous sums of money?

Of course he hasn’t. It should have been obvious from the start that he wasn’t retiring. He’s the biggest name in the sport. If he’s going to retire, he’s going to put out more than a vague Tweet. I mean, he should do at least an interview with whichever MMA journalist isn’t on Dana White’s shit list if he’s leaving the sport. He owes us that much.

Everything was cleared up in two days, though, as Conor revealed he wasn’t retiring and just wanted a break from all the media commitments he had in front of him to promote his UFC 200 main event against Nate Diaz so he could focus on his training. He was supposed to fly into the US for a few press conferences and to film a commercial this past week and he wanted to stay in Iceland instead, making him the first person to ever say they’d rather stay in Iceland than travel somewhere else.

So that’s all it was. Conor wanted to train instead of promote, since, according to his Facebook statement, he’s …”not yet paid to promote.” The UFC obviously felt that Conor needed to fly in and do the promotion and, as a result of his actions, removed him from the main event. They haven’t fired him or suspended him or stripped him of the featherweight championship he holds and seems to have no interest in defending, but he’s off the supposed “biggest” event in UFC history, even though the only reason it would have been the “biggest” is because McGregor was going to be on it.

That’s why I feel UFC needs to just nut up and put Conor back on the card. I mean, unless they stopped caring about money all of a sudden.

And I thought that was all that UFC cared about these days was money. I mean, that’s the reason that McGregor got the opportunity to become champion in the first place, because they knew that, even though he hadn’t earned a fight with Jose Aldo, more people would be interested in seeing Conor fight for the belt than Frankie Edgar.

It’s the reason the originally booked main event for UFC 196 was Conor vs. Rafael dos Anjos, because they realized that more people would be interested in seeing Conor attempt to become a 2 division champion than defend his title against Frankie Edgar.

Oh, and no offense, Frankie Edgar. Just a few more years and that belt will be yours! Maybe!

Conor has done a phenomenal job of building his name in the sport. He’s one of the best promoters the promotion has at their disposal and he’s proven that with the buyrates of the last 3 Payperviews he has headlined. Now, we don’t for sure that he generated $400 million over those 3 events, as Conor claimed in his Facebook post, but one thing we can agree on is he’s making the company more money than anyone else on the roster.

It’s within that context that Conor’s grievances make perfect sense. He’s done so much work promoting his last 3 fights that he feels he deserves a break. Of course, there’s a little irony that the one fight he doesn’t want to promote is the rematch to the guy who beat him, but it’s understandable that he wants to focus on his training and reminding himself what made him a star. He’s a celebrity who’s trying to remember that he was a fighter first and that he didn’t always have the posh lifestyle he can now afford and I have nothing but respect for him saying that.

Does that make Conor right in backing out of his promotional commitments? No. I mean, if the contract he signed stated that these specific commitments were going to be a part of the build to the fight, then he needs to honor those obligations. It’s not like this is some random UFC event. This is UFC 200, the “biggest” event in UFC history. Anyone wanting to fight on this card should have expected there to be a heavier promotional load for this show than any other on the calendar this year (except maybe the MSG card). If Conor didn’t want all of this, he should have either renegotiated the contract or not signed it and waited to fight on another card.

But would UFC have been willing to renegotiate and given Conor a lighter promotional load? I don’t know if they would have, since it seems like they are trying to make a statement with his removal from the card. UFC is aware that Frankenstein’s Monster is loose and the events of the past few days are trying to show that they are the ones in control, that their decisions won’t be dictated by the whims of any fighter, regardless of how popular they are or how much money they are capable of generating.

This whole situation is kind of like a parent who has spoiled their child rotten finally trying to teach the kid some manners. UFC wants to show that no fighter is bigger than the UFC and no fighter gets special treatment despite the fact that Conor has been getting special treatment his entire UFC career. I mean, how many fighters have gotten to roll up and down the Las Vegas strip in a Maserati with Dana and Lorenzo Fertitta when you’ve only had 3 fights in the organization? Who else is getting the red panty treatment?

I’m not saying that Conor deserves special treatment, even though he’s definitely a earned a little with his drawing ability, but that’s because he doesn’t need it. He’s already getting it and now he’s asking for more. Maybe UFC is finally realizing they have given him too much.

And I can respect that UFC wants Conor to fly out to promote the show because all the other fighters have been willing to disrupt their training camps to do the same, but let’s be real: Does Conor need to fly in to promote the fight? No. All he had to do is put out one Tweet and he has more people talking about UFC 200 than any commercial possibly could.

Seriously, what kind of commercial did they have planned that they needed Conor to be in Vegas for it? Don’t most UFC commercials consist of past fight footage or other things that could be filmed on location at Conor’s gym?

Do they need to film Conor walking down The Strip again? Can’t they CGI that or something? Maybe if UFC put actual effort into making effective promotional pieces, this wouldn’t be a problem at all.

But I get what UFC is doing. They want to flex their power and put the fighter in his place. They need to show those independent contractors who get asked to do so much but don’t get the decency of even being considered employees who runs the show and who needs who, even if I don’t necessarily agree that Conor needs UFC more or UFC needs Conor more.

Neither really needs the other. Not at this point. Well, unless this is all about money, in which case of course they need each other.

Conor is not going to make anywhere near as much money fighting anywhere other than the UFC (and if he does fight elsewhere, he’ll be fought of as a lesser fighter anyway since the UFC is the only promotion most people give a damn about).

And will UFC 200 do well without Conor? It will do all right. Will it be the “biggest” event in UFC history without him? Absolutely not. There’s no other fighter they can put in the main event of this show that will generate the same amount of interest. The only fighter that could come close is Ronda Rousey but she’s too busy Road Housing things to come back right now. They could also slot Georges St-Pierre in there, assuming he even does come back, but I don’t think his return will be as big as a Conor McGregor fight. It will be big, just not as big.

So, if UFC wants to pretend to be a just organization that all of a sudden values its fighters (and knows the value of its fighters), they can leave Conor off UFC 200 and hope this situation doesn’t play out again, with Conor or any other fighter. But, if UFC wants to deliver the big show the fans are expecting, then they need to put Conor back on the show.

Seriously UFC, remember when you did this to Nick Diaz? Remember how that ended? He still fought in the main event. So stop with the fussin’ and get to the fightin’. We demands our red panty night. DEMANDS IT!

Evan Zivin has been writing for 411 MMA since May of 2013. Evan loves the sport, and likes to takes a lighthearted look at the world of MMA in his writing…usually.