What are the Chances of Conor McGregor Headlining UFC 200?

Recently, incumbent featherweight champ Conor McGregor announced his retirement from the sport of MMA, and was subsequently pulled from the UFC 200 main event which would’ve featured the highly anticipated rematch against Nate Diaz. And that’s all she wrote. Or is it?

Well let’s take a moment … or two, to sober reflect.

Deep breath; exhale.

Ok, I’m gonna lay it on the line — the chances of “The Notorious” headlining the historic UFC 200 gig were slim-to-none when I first got word that the inimitable publicist had hung ‘em up for good. However, on further reflection, those odds have risen from said none, to slim-to-some, to Slim-To-Oh-Yes-He-Will!

Sure, I could’ve called upon the esemplastic powers of the whodunit police to shed some light on this soi disant seismic brouhaha, but why, when yours truly has solved the conundrum almost instantaneously.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship, though still nascent, is a well-oiled machine; a business that’s in the business of augmenting its already going concern. So with that in mind, it wouldn’t be inconceivable for the Zuffa-based promotion to employ a number of stratagems (legitimate or otherwise) to ensure those greenbacks keep registering exponentially on their tills.

UFC 196 (results here) which featured McGregor and Diaz in the main event was the highest grossing pay-per-view in the company’s history. And I reckon UFC 200 will both surpass and supplant the latter as its most lucrative event, with or without the headline act of McGregor/Diaz.

Think about it, reports of his retirement and being bounced from the event altogether have made headline news worldwide (even Twitter went up in smoke); amongst mixed martial arts affiliates, casual fans and everyone else who has come across the cognomen McGregor.

Now imagine the “two heads are better than one” idiom; Dana White and McGregor, and maybe even add the Fertitta brothers into the mix? What you now have is a quartet of business acumen at the ready, not to mention two unashamed self-promoters in White and McGregor.

So my theory is this; the retirement thingamajig was a carefully orchestrated business/marketing ploy to generate mass interest, which you know it already has.

Furthermore, the Irishman hasn’t even shut up shop on his training camp in Iceland yet, so that per se is an inkling that any time soon a rabbit will be pulled out of a hat.

Still, visualize the scenario when in a week or so it’s announced that “Mystic Mac” has come out of retirement to headline UFC 200 with Diaz.

You know when that pronouncement is made, it’s gonna be one hell of an MMA stampede — numbers shooting through the roof like some heat seeking missile; at least three-fold in comparison to UFC 196.

All told, I’ll stick to my guns — McGregor vs. Diaz is going down in Sin City, July 9, at UFC 200.