After months of speculation regarding UFC's upcoming historic card, the show is finally starting to come together. The mixed martial arts community has been overrun with conjecture from pundits, fighters and fans regarding what bouts would take place at the landmark show, and on March 30th those questions began being answered thanks to the announcement of several confirmed fights. Main eventing the milestone event will be the rematch between Conor McGregor (19-3) and Nate Diaz (19-10), which will once again take place in the welterweight division. The fight will go down around four months after their UFC 196 showdown which saw the two square off on short notice after 155 pound champion Rafael Dos Anjos was forced to withdraw from his title defense against McGregor due to injury. Diaz went on to finish Conor in convincing fashion, submitting the current featherweight titlist in the second round. The news of the rematch is surprising considering there are several opponents for "Notorious" who make more sense from a career standpoint. Another loss to Diaz will severely damage the drawing power of the man who has become the UFC's most popular male star, and unless there are some drastic changes made there's no reason to expect the outcome to be any different at UFC 200. Dana White, Lorenzo Fertitta and even McGregor's coach, John Kavanaugh attempted to talk the overly confident Irish fighter out of taking the rematch so soon, but in the end Conor's will won out over that of his employer. The UFC president had this to say:
"He was obsessed. Obsessed with fighting Nate Diaz again. Obviously Lorenzo and I tried to argue with him and said 'Let's go back to 145 and defend your title. Or if you really want the Diaz fight that bad do it at 155.' He wants the fight at 170."
So where does that leave the featherweight championship?
Brad Hamilton is a writer, musician and marketer/social media manager from Atlanta, Georgia. He's an undefeated freestyle rap battle champion, spends too little time being productive and defines himself as the literary version of Brock Lesnar.
