Is Conor McGregor Still UFC Champion?, Jeremy Stephens On Saturday's Fight, UFC 222 Video
- The build towards UFC 222 next month has started, as the promotion released several video promos. One of them, which you can view above, spotlights the main card bouts, including the headline fight between female featherweight champion Cris Cyborg and Yana Kunitskaya.
UFC 222 takes place March 3 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Along with Cyborg vs. Kunitskaya, former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar takes on Brian Ortega in the co-main event in a featherweight title-eliminator.
Other main card bouts include Stefan Struve vs. former UFC champion Andrei Arlovski and one-time title challenger Cat Zingano vs. Ketlen Vieiera.
- Is Conor McGregor still the reigning UFC lightweight champion? For the time being, that appears to be the case. But things look to be changing in the near future.
UFC president Dana White recently told TMZ that the upcoming UFC 223 main event between interim champion Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov will be for the undisputed title – and not just the interim belt.
"I said in the last press conference, that fight will be for the title," White said. "It's not for the interim title. That fight is for the real title."
McGregor has yet to defend his belt, as he opted to fight Nate Diaz and box Floyd Mayweather since winning it over a year ago vs. Eddie Alvarez. "Notorious" never defended his featherweight belt either, as he was stripped of it.
"I'd like to see Conor fight the winner," White said. "Conor made a lot of money and he wants time off, but the division has to go on and business has to go on."
- Jeremy Stephens has been around the sport of MMA since 2005, including the UFC since 2007. This Saturday night, he faces Josh Emmett in the main event of UFC on FOX 28 from Orlando with the winner taking a giant step towards being a future title challenger in the featherweight division.
After finishing Dooho Choi in January after a decision win last September vs. Gilbert Melendez, Stephens knows he has the resume to stack up against anybody. But he'll enter this fight ranked lower than Emmett, who knocked out Ricardo Lamas recently. That doesn't matter to the Iowa native, as he told "UFC Tonight" earlier this week.
"I feel like taking care of business on Saturday, focusing on Josh Emmett and that puts me right in the mix," Stephens said. "Rankings don't matter to me. They are so far-fetched, it doesn't matter to me."
UFC on FOX 28 airs Saturday night on FOX. Wrestling Inc. will have coverage of the action live and free.