Just a few months ago UFC 200 looked to be in real danger. Conor McGregor was kicked off the card after missing a few press obligations, which turned out not to matter in the grand scheme of things, and Nate Diaz was refusing to fight anyone else in his place.
Fast forward 2 months and UFC 200 is looking as strong as any card in UFC history.
UFC 200 PPV (10 p.m. ET)
- Daniel Cormier vs. interim champ Jon Jones (light heavyweight title)
- Mark Hunt vs. Brock Lesnar
- Miesha Tate vs. Amanda Nunes (women’s bantamweight title)
- Jose Aldo vs. Frankie Edgar (interim featherweight title)
- Travis Browne vs. Cain Velasquez
FOX Sports 1 Prelims (8 p.m. ET)
- Julianna Pena vs. Cat Zingano
- Kelvin Gastelum vs. Johny Hendricks
- Raphael Assuncao vs. T.J. Dillashaw
- Enrique Marin vs. Sage Northcutt
UFC Fight Pass Prelims (6:30 p.m. ET)
- Joe Lauzon vs. Diego Sanchez
- Gegard Mousasi vs. Thiago “Marreta” Santos
- Takanori Gomi vs. Jim Miller
The card has everything a true fight fan hopes to see at an event of this magnitude.
The Fight Pass prelims feature a trio of veteran fights that will contend for end of the night bonuses. Lauzon vs Sanchez is one that has ‘Fight of the Night’ written all over it, Mousasi is a constant headliner on FS1 cards and Miller is a veteran desperate for a win.
That momentum will roll right into the FS1 prelim cards with Sage Northcutt opening up the televised card. One of the best aspects of the famed UFC 100 card was its ability to build new superstars and Northcutt will fill that role with a victory.
Every other fight on the FS1 card features a previous champion or #1 contender. Both Dillashaw and Hendricks hope to ounce back from losses and put themselves back in the title hunt, while Zingano vs Pena may very well be a Bantamweight #1 contender match.
The UFC 200 PPV card starts off strong and shows no signs of letting up. Cain Velasquez hopes to show that his injuries are a thing of the past and that he’s ready to recapture his heavyweight title. Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar hope to capture interim gold in the featherweight division, while champion Conor McGregor chases Nate Diaz. For Aldo it’s a shot to prove that the McGregor fight was just a minor hiccup and for Edgar it shows that he’s amongst the best multi-division fighters the UFC has ever seen.
The Tate vs Nunes title match is as close of a match up as we will see on this card. Tate was down 3 rounds to 1 against Holly Holm before pulling out a late round choke to win the belt, so she is far from invincible. On that same card Nunes showed that she could dominate a fight with her win over Valentina Shevchenko.
Th co-main event features the biggest name of the night, Brock Lesnar, in his return to the octagon. Lesnar will help the UFC draw casual fans to the PPV but Mark Hunt’s one-punch KO power has the chance of stealing the show.
In the main event, Daniel Cormier will put up his title against the interim belt of the #1 P4P fighter in the world, Jon Jones. Jones looked rusty in his return fight against Ovince St. Preux, which leaves the possibility that DC fares better than their original fight. The animosity isn’t the same as it was for their original bout but there’s no doubt that we are seeing two of the greatest light heavyweights in the history of the sport face-off once again.
The fights themselves will determine where this card ranks amongst the greatest of all-time but on paper it’s not a difficult to proclaim it the greatest booking ever.