Jon Jones-Daniel Cormier rematch will replace Conor McGregor at UFC 200

The bitter rivalry between stripped former light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones and the man who inherited his belt, Daniel Cormier, has been anointed the main event of UFC 200.

The July 9 card at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas has been fraught with controversy following the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s decision to bar the highly popular featherweight champion Conor McGregor of Ireland from it after he failed to attend a Friday news conference and marketing filming in Las Vegas.

McGregor, who was to fight Nate Diaz in a welterweight rematch of a March 5 bout won by replacement fighter Diaz by second-round submission, said he needed to remain in training out of the country to have his best chance to defeat Diaz.

The charismatic fighter has proven to be a stronger draw than either Jones or Cormier. His last two gates have been $10.1 million and $8.1 million, while Jones’ bout on Saturday drew just $2.3 million.

McGregor tweeted he was back on the card Monday, but UFC President Dana White quickly refuted that and has since said McGregor can fight on another card after July 9.

Cormier-Jones moved to the forefront Saturday after Jones, ranked the UFC’s top pound-for-pound fighter, defeated Ovince Saint Preaux by unanimous decision at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in what was viewed as a rusty comeback showing after a near 15-month layoff since his January 2015 victory by decision over Cormier.

In the interim, Jones was later found to have had cocaine in his system before the Cormier fight, and one year ago he was in a car crash that left a pregnant woman with a broken arm. Jones was spotted fleeing the scene with a stack of cash, and drug paraphernalia was found in the car.

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He skirted jail time for that incident in New Mexico, but then was jailed briefly last month after getting pulled over for street racing by an Albuquerque officer, whom Jones called a “pig” and a “liar” while receiving five tickets. A judge kept Jones on probation and assigned him anger-management classes.

Cormier, who’s defeated Anthony Johnson and Alexander Gustafsson in Jones’ absence, suffered a lower-leg injury that kept him from fighting Jones at Saturday’s UFC 197.

He said after Jones’ victory that if a Monday doctor’s examination cleared him, he would fight Jones, and on Wednesday morning, the UFC tweeted the news that the rematch was moved to the top of UFC 200.

Cormier has embraced a type of company man role during Jones’ troubles, almost embarrassingly smooching up to White in his role as a Fox Sports 1 analyst about his availability for fights, and hammering Jones as a “junkie,” while wondering at one UFC news conference why fans were booing him and not Jones.

The pair were disciplined before their 2015 bout for fighting onstage at a pre-fight news conference.

UFC 200 will also include a women’s bantamweight title fight between new champion Miesha Tate and Brazil’s Amanda Nunes, and an interim featherweight title fight between former featherweight champion Jose Aldo and ex-lightweight champion Frankie Edgar.

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