After months of endless anticipation, the biggest fight card of the year is almost here.
Kind of.
It’s hard to imagine this card being worth your while, especially considering how invested we all were in what was poised to be the biggest mixed martial arts bout in featherweight history—and arguably the biggest fight of the year.
Jose Aldo was supposed to walk in, bearing the black and gold colors UFC champions wear in this modern Reebok era. Conor McGregor was supposed to come in draped in a cloak of green, white and orange. At the end of it all, an undisputed featherweight champion would emerge; in his shadow would follow a small island’s worth of people ready to take to their keyboards to dispute that “undisputed” part.
It would have been beautiful, really.
Now, UFC 189 certainly doesn’t have the main event most of us were dying to see, but believe it or not, there are plenty of other really, really good fights scheduled to take place Saturday night. Here are five reasons you should still buy in to UFC 189: Mendes vs. McGregor.