UFC 300 has to bring the eyeballs, not the eye pokes.
If the UFC 300 pay-per-view (PPV) main event is going to blow your mind, it can’t feature the overdue welterweight title fight between reigning 170-pound champion Leon Edwards and streaking division contender Belal Muhammad, because “it doesn’t have enough to it” for the April 13 headliner in Las Vegas.
That’s according to former UFC champ and current cageside commentator Daniel Cormier.
“What I will say about UFC 300, it’s missing a big fight,” Cormier said on his “DC & RC” show (transcribed by Farah Hannoun). “That big fight that it’s missing has to have a backstory. That big fight has to have bad blood. That big fight has to bring the eyeballs. So, it can’t be Belal Muhammad and Leon Edwards because it just doesn’t have enough to it. While it’s a fantastic fight, it doesn’t have enough to it for it to be the main event.”
I guess “DC” missed this backstory and this bad blood.
Cormier would rather see the “special” trilogy between former two-division champion Conor McGregor and longtime rival Nate Diaz, which would require the promotion to bench Michael Chandler and bring Diaz back from free agency.
“Regardless of who [McGregor] would fight, the attraction comes with him,” Cormier said. “But if McGregor fights Diaz, that is what I believe draws the general fan in as much as anything that they could do in the UFC right now — just because of Nate Diaz and the intrigue, the way the first fight played out, the way the second fight played out. It is still two of the highest-grossing pay-per-views in UFC history.”
And highest paying.
“These two men, when you put them together, make a lot of money, and it is far enough out there to be considered an attraction,” Cormier continued. “I also believe at this point in their careers; sure, Nate Diaz isn’t the guy that he was before. He’s not the guy that fought the most beautiful striking exhibit against Michael Johnson in Florida, where he went and (said), ‘Conor McGregor, you’re taking everything I worked for.’ He’s not that same guy, but neither is Conor McGregor.”
An announcement on the UFC 300 main event is expected this week.