BREAKING: McGregor Out of UFC 200

Well, Conor McGregor is NOT going to be participating in UFC 200...

All this comes after last week's saga in which UFCs Dana White expected McGregor to come back from his training to promote the card. McGregor said no and instead opted to tweet he was "retiring." A few days later, McGregor came out with a lengthy Facebook post which basically said that he was not retiring, but that he wanted to concentrate on fighting - and that his tweet basically gave enough publicity to the event so he didn't need to be there in person.

White has now exercised his power to keep McGregor off the card, basically because he won't play by White's rules.

This seems like a foolish step for each of them. I totally respect McGregor's desire to become a champion again and to focus on training, but he (and the sport) need promotion to continue to grow into the mainstream. Furthermore, he needed the event to try to claim the title from Diaz.

White needs McGregor too. While his sport is growing rapidly, sports are better with stars and known commodities. Who are the biggest starts in UFC? Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor.

It's a missed opportunity for them both and it's a shame this power struggle hurts the event.