UFC 200 News: Women's Champ Miesha Tate Laments Removal of Conor McGregor from Card
Reigning UFC bantamweight champion Miesha Tate believes the burden has been placed on her, since featherweight world champion Conor McGregor was removed from UFC 200.
After a few disagreements in terms of the usual media obligations, the UFC's top management decided to pull "The Notorious" off the blockbuster event on July 9th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. McGregor tried to negotiate by offering to come to the New York press conference then go back to training, but the UFC brass also denied it.
On Tuesday on Good Morning America, the UFC has announced that the new main event for the said card would be another much awaited rematch: a light heavyweight title showdown between champion Daniel Cormier, and former long-time titlist and current interim champion Jon Jones.
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Tate is part of the main card of the said event, as she embarks on her maiden title defense against Amanda Nunes. And for her, all the other fighters on the card had to "pick up the pieces" that was caused by the entire brouhaha between McGregor and the UFC that led to the current situation.
"They filmed the commercial the other day, and we actually ended up having to pick up the pieces of Conor not being there," Tate said in a Bloody Elbow report. "We had to film more. I had to actually come back and push my training schedule to the side and scoot my stuff around to be able to accommodate the fact that Conor wasn't there and fill up those voids."
For their part, McGregor and his team were adamant about getting a little leeway from complying with all press obligations, to give them time to focus more on training.
While his actions were admirable for some, others like Tate also sided with the company, simply noting that these are fairly reasonable obligations that come with being an elite-level fighter.
"This is reasonable promotion," she said. "I have never had the UFC ask me to do unreasonable promotion. And they're very accommodating."
