As I sit here at 6am on a Sunday morning and BT Sport 2 switches over to highlights of last season’s Champions League, I can’t shake the feeling that UFC 200 just can’t be over.
It’s not that I didn’t want it to be over. Let me tell you, three consecutive overnight shifts covering UFC Fight Night 90, The Ultimate Fighter 23 finale and the big one have taken it out of me.
Nor is the feeling of dissatisfaction down to the quality of the UFC 200 card and a sense that I felt let down. Believing that the hype surrounding the event would be backed up was always optimistic and it would be unfair to criticise the organisation after they did everything short of ringing up Chuck Liddell to get people interested in the event over the past week.
I think the reason that I’m sat here with a furrowed brow, half-watching a cracking Julian Draxler goal and half-casting my mind back to the combination that rocked Miesha Tate, is that I remain without answers.
The beauty of these big UFC events is that they so often provide closure. Like the most beautiful pieces of music, UFC cards usually build fight-by-fight to a crescendo before the final note rings and us fans are left thinking ‘ah, well that’s done now. On to the next one.’
But I’m here, considering shaking the television to get a little bit more UFC 200 out of it because I’m left with so many more unknowns right now than I was at midnight.
The head-scratching didn’t really get underway until the main card which started with a tremendous performance by Cain Velasquez who rolled back the years and finished Travis Browne in the first round.
But what’s next for him? Does he walk straight into a shot at the winner of Stipe Miocic vs. Alistair Overeem?
Fabricio Werdum and Ben Rothwell are set to meet at UFC 203, on the same card as the next heavyweight title fight, so a Werdum win and Miocic win likely sets up that rematch.
And with Junior dos Santos also in the mix, it’s hard to gauge where this win leaves Velasquez in a stacked heavyweight division.
More uncertainty arrived with the interim featherweight title fight as Jose Aldo outworked Frankie Edgar.
It’s not that curious when it comes to Aldo as he will take on undisputed champion Conor McGregor when he presumably returns to 145 lbs but what the hell do we do with Edgar?
On two occasions now, he’s proven that he can’t get past Aldo. It took him five straight wins and over three years to get another crack at the Brazilian and Edgar turns 35 in October. He simply doesn’t have the time to build that head of steam back up again.
Will Edgar ever face McGregor? Many believe that ‘The Answer’ has what it takes to beat the Irishman but they’re like ships passing in the night. It looks likely they’ll never cross paths in the Octagon which must be so frustrating as Edgar is certain that he can beat the champion at 145 lbs… he just can’t get his hands on him.
Does he drop to bantamweight to try to claim his second world title there? That would be a significant cut for Edgar, whose game relies so heavily on high energy and output. It’s quite possible that his greatest strengths would be nullified if he drains himself to make 135 lbs.
Then we reach the Daniel Cormier dilemma.
Cormier is, quite clearly, the greatest fighter in the world at 205 lbs when Jon Jones is not around.
As the curtains close on UFC 200, we have no idea when Jones will return to the Octagon and, when he does, it’s very possible that Cormier will have hung up his gloves.
‘DC’ has already beaten Alexander Gustafsson and ‘Rumble’ Johnson and those rematches don’t exactly get the blood pumping. Glover Teixeira isn’t all that intriguing either, if he gets past Johnson, as his best days are behind him.
A return to heavyweight would be based on the hope that teammate Velasquez doesn’t regain his heavyweight title so it’s hard to see that happening.
Without Jones, interesting challenges for Cormier are few and far between and he’s at the stage of his career now where his legacy is going to inevitably be hampered by a rival’s inability to stay out of trouble.
No light has really been shed on Brock Lesnar’s scenario. His return was quintessential but is he genuinely in the title picture?
The WWE allowed him his one-off fight on the momentous UFC 200 event but would Vince McMahon acquiesce to having one of his greatest assets get his face pummelled by the best of the UFC’s heavyweight division?
Is he just going to be wheeled out for the odd fight when the UFC needs to guarantee pay-per-view numbers? Who knows? The man is 39 years old so he can’t have that much left in the tank.
And finally we come to the women’s bantamweight division, where nobody has been able to defend the title since Ronda Rousey was dethroned.
Holly Holm, the Rousey-slayer, failed. Miesha Tate, the Holm-sleeper, failed. Is Nunes really the best in the world at bantamweight? Her style doesn’t exactly lend itself to longevity in terms of defending the belt.
Moreover, who’s next for Nunes? An immediate rematch with Tate isn’t on the cards. If Holm fails to get past Valentina Shevchenko then are we going to have Nunes vs. Shevchenko II as a title fight? You can’t picture much talk around the water cooler about the outcome of that rematch.
And the big question remains – when is Rousey even coming back? If her days are done then are we going to see the strap continue to shift from fighter to fighter? That’s not great for marketing title fights as pay-per-view headliners.
One or two of those considerations would have been acceptable come the final buzzer this morning but it seems that every fight on the main card just clouded the current state of multiple divisions in the UFC.
When you look back at UFC 100, it was just a series of doors being closed satisfactorily.
Brock Lesnar got revenge on Frank Mir and unified the heavyweight title, Georges St-Pierre solidified his status as the greatest welterweight in the world and Dan Henderson literally couldn’t have shut Michael Bisping’s mouth more emphatically.
Saturday night lacked that sense of conclusion and closure as UFC 200 left a string of questions hanging frustratingly in the air.
Here’s to the next 100 events of trying to answer them.
