In 2015, the UFC had a pretty good year that features fights from Jon Jones, Conor McGregor, and Ronda Rousey. In 2026, the UFC has the opportunity to bring all three back, but it\u2019s looking like the promotion might go 0-3 with booking its biggest superstars.<\/p>\n
First there was Ronda Rousey,<\/a> who will fight Gina Carano for Jake Paul\u2019s MVP promotion on Netflix. She said UFC CEO Dana White offered her an amazing pay-per-view deal to fight again for UFC, then the Paramount+ deal came along and ended PPVs. Now? \u201cIt\u2019s in their best interest actually not to put on the best fights possible, but to spend as little as money as possible so that he can keep it,\u201d Rousey said.<\/a><\/p>\n Now there\u2019s Jon Jones, who begged to be on the UFC White House card but instead was replaced by Ciryl Gane, who will fight Alex Pereira at \u2018Freedom Fights 250.\u2019 White said Jones was never a real consideration<\/a> for the card and even said Jones was retired \u2026 which led Jones to ask, \u201cI\u2019m released from UFC?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Coming up is the UFC\u2019s last superstar, Conor McGregor. \u201cThe Notorious\u201d also begged to be on the White House, but UFC simply wasn\u2019t willing to lose out on the $20+ million gate<\/a> McGregor generates to put him at the White House. Instead, there are reports<\/a> he\u2019s being slotted onto the International Fight Week card in Las Vegas on July 11th.<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d White said at the post-fight press conference. \u201cBut we are definitely talking to Conor, obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe have no date for Conor right now,\u201d he said later. \u201cNot even close.\u201d<\/p>\n McGregor has been spent the last three weeks calling for a contract to be sent with nothing to show for it. He described the back and forth with UFC in a recent interview with Chael Sonnen.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Well, we\u2019re gonna offer you this opponent.\u2019 \u2018Yes. No problem. I accept,\u2019\u201d McGregor said. \u201cDay after day after day. \u2018No problem.\u2019 \u2018We\u2019ll send the contract.\u2019 \u2018Excellent. It\u2019s a great match-up. That\u2019s a great match-up. That\u2019s a great match-up\u2019 is all you ever heard out of me, and no contact came. And that\u2019s kinda where I\u2019m at. Still here in this limbo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAudi [Attar], my manager, is out there in Las Vegas on Monday for a face to face meeting. I hope a respectable offer comes through. I\u2019m notoriously good to deal with. I\u2019m an honest man. I admire fairness. I\u2019m sure we can get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n Honestly, we\u2019re not so sure ourselves. Will the TKO bean counters in control of the UFC even allow the promotion to pay a fighter like Conor McGregor what he\u2019s worth? If they\u2019re willing to pass on Ronda Rousey and Jon Jones, why should we expect them to pull off a new deal with Conor McGregor? At this point, it seems they\u2019re perfectly content to keep him on the sidelines so no one can book him. What fair deal can be reached when UFC has no incentive to make one?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2015, the UFC had a pretty good year that features fights from Jon Jones, Conor McGregor, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-526956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}