10 reasons to watch UFC 207: What do ya wanna bet the return of Ronda Rousey is in there?

The UFC’s women’s bantamweight title has done some traveling over the past year.

At UFC 193, the original owner of the title, Ronda Rousey, surrendered the belt to Holly Holm via a violent head-kick knockout. Holm’s reign was a short one, ending when Miesha Tate choked her unconscious at UFC 196. Just a few months later Tate dropped the title to Amanda Nunes, tapping to a choke in the first round at UFC 200.

While the title ricocheted around the division, Rousey was nowhere to be found, a cone of silence descending over her and her camp. That silence extended into UFC 207 fight week, where Rousey was given an unprecedented pass on doing any pre-fight media.

There are a lot of questions surrounding Rousey heading into her fight with current champion Nunes. She’ll get the opportunity to answer the most important of those questions at UFC 207.

In the other title fight on the card, bantamweight kingpin Dominick Cruz meets Cody Garbrandt.

UFC 207 takes place at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Center. The evening’s main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on FS1 and UFC Fight Pass.

Here are 10 reasons to watch the final UFC event of 2016.

1. Fragile or focused?

There are two overwhelming schools of thought on Rousey heading into UFC 207. One looks at the former champion, currently ranked No. 2 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA women’s bantamweight rankings, as a broken fighter. This group feels Rousey’s knockout loss to Holm has left her in tatters and that her media blackout is proof of that fragile psyche. The other sees Rousey’s (12-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) silence as indicative of her complete focus on preparing for Nunes (13-4 MMA, 6-1 UFC) and regaining the title.

If you’re wondering which group the No. 1 ranked Nunes falls into, it’s the former.

“I feel like the UFC wants to make it easy for her, so she doesn’t feel like she’s not the champion anymore,” Nunes told USA TODAY Sports. “They want to do this to make her feel strong or something. They try to promote her so she can see that – ‘Ronda, Ronda, Ronda.’”

2. Come for the fight, stay for the aftermath

Joe Rogan usually conducts in-cage post-fight interviews with both the victor and the vanquished following title fights. When the main event comes to a close at UFC 207, it’s going to be interesting to see if Rousey, win or lose, ends her media blackout. If she does, you can bet both fans and media will want to hear what she has to say after her prolonged silence.

3. Different tools

We know Garbrandt  (10-0 MMA, 5-0 UFC) has power. What we don’t know is if he has a Plan B if he fails to make Cruz (22-1 MMA, 5-0 UFC) feel that power and that’s important because Cruz has the best striking defense among active UFC fighters.

Additionally, Garbrandt, the No. 7 ranked bantamweight, has never had to defend a takedown in the UFC and the No. 1 ranked Cruz is excellent at getting his opponent to the mat. The last time he failed to get at least one takedown in a fight was in 2009 when Ian McCall stuffed four Cruz takedown attempts.

Garbrandt has done everything right to earn his title shot, but the jury’s still out if he’s fully prepared to face everything that Cruz brings to the cage. But then, it only takes one strike to change MMA history, just ask Rousey.

4. A lot to consider

Since moving up to bantamweight, John Lineker has passed every test he’s been presented. Well, almost every test. He did miss weight before his October decision win over John Dodson.

Now, Lineker (29-7 MMA, 10-2 UFC), ranked No. 8 at 135 pounds, faces former bantamweight champion, No. 2-ranked T.J. Dillashaw (13-3 MMA, 9-3 UFC) in a fight that could earn the winner a title shot.

There are four things to watch in this matchup: the power of Lineker’s strikes, the movement and elusiveness of Dillashaw’s style, how the judges weigh those things if the fight goes the distance and if the winner’s performance is good enough to get a title shot.

Dillashaw enters the fight coming off a decision win over Raphael Assuncao.

5. Opportunity knocks

Since winning the Strikeforce welterweight title in January 2013, Tarec Saffiedine has fought four times, and two of those fights were this year. Saffiedine’s 2-2 in those contests and currently unranked in the welterweight division. He can make some big noise at UFC 207 against No. 9-ranked Dong Hyun Kim, who has not fought since a TKO win over Dominic Waters in November 2015.

Kim is one of the most aggressive strikers in the welterweight division and with the amount of time he’s had between fights he could be over anxious to remind everyone of that since Saffiedine, never known for his power, doesn’t seem to present much of a counterstriking threat.

That’s not to say Kim (21-3-1 MMA, 12-3 UFC) will have it easy. Saffiedine (16-5 MMA, 2-2 UFC), coming off a decision loss to Rick Story, has only been knocked out once in his career and he does possess some of the best leg kicks in the UFC.

6. Don’t let it become a streak

Louis Smolka was on a four-fight winning streak and talking title shot before a first-round submission loss to the previously unheralded Brandon Moreno put all that on hold. Smolka took the loss to Moreno very hard.

“I kind of just stared at the bottom of a shot glass for about a month, and I felt sorry for myself,” Smolka told MMAjunkie.

Now out of that funk, Smolka (11-2 MMA, 5-2 UFC), ranked No. 14 in the flyweight division, looks to regain the momentum he lost in that defeat when he faces No. 15-ranked Ray Borg (9-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC). Borg is coming off a decision loss to Justin Scoggins, a loss that ended his three-fight winning streak.

Those recent losses aren’t career killers for these two young fighters, but neither wants to extend his losing streak to two straight. (To make matters worse for Borg, he missed weight today, coming in at 129.5 pounds.)

7. No half-stepping in MMA

Former welterweight champion Johny Hendricks is 2-4 in his past six fights and judging from recent comments, his commitment to the fight game, after nine years as a pro, might be waning.

“If I don’t win this fight, then obviously it’s not my fighting skills, it’s my willingness to train,” Hendricks told MMAjunkie Radio. “That’s sort of where my mindset is. I’m back to training hard and working out hard. But let’s say something does happen and I lose – for one I would be a gatekeeper. For two, I don’t want to just fight the fights.”

As we all now, professional fighter is not a job where you just punch in, give 50 percent and punch out at the end of your shift. If you’re not all-in, you could end up in a bad way at the end of your workday.

Hendricks (17-5 MMA, 12-5 UFC) is ranked No. 8 at welterweight. He faces No. 13 ranked Neil Magny 18-5 MMA, 11-4 UFC) at UFC 207, who is coming off a first-round TKO loss to Lorenz Larkin at UFC 202.

Today, Hendricks’ long struggle with making weight for the 170-pound division came back to bite him again. He missed weight for the fight with Magny, coming in at 173.5 pounds.

8. Been a long road

Mike Pyle’s first pro MMA fight took place in 1999. His opponent at UFC 207, Alex Garcia, was 12 at that time. What that means is Pyle (27-12-1 MMA, 10-7 UFC) has a lot more experience than Garcia (13-3 MMA, 3-2 UFC). It also means Pyle has lots of mileage on his 41-year-old body.

The clock is ticking on Pyle’s UFC career, which began back in 2009, but this is a fight that could play to Pyle’s strengths. Pyle has recently struggled with strikers and while Garcia is developing a striking game, he’s mostly known for his wrestling and his suspect cardio.

If Pyle can use his height and reach, his takedown defense and his ground game, he has a good chance to earn his second win of 2016.

9. Back meet wall

Brandon Thatch joined the UFC with a 9-1 record with each of those wins coming by way of first-round stoppage. After continuing that streak in his first two UFC fights the promotion matched him up against former UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson in the main event of UFC Fight Night 60.

Thatch lost that welterweight fight by submission and followed up with two more submission defeats. Now on a three-fight losing streak, Thatch could be fighting for his job.

As Thatch (11-4 MMA, 2-3 UFC) noted, his UFC losses have come to “some studs,” and that’s probably the reason the UFC has given him the chance to get back in the win column against unbeaten UFC newcomer Niko Price (8-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC).

10. A solid start

A tainted supplement cost Tim Means the first headlining bout of his UFC career and six months of his career. In his second match after his suspension, Means  (26-7-1 MMA, 8-4 UFC) faces Alex Oliveira (16-3-1 MMA, 5-2 UFC).

Means destroyed Sabah Homasi when he returned from his suspension, earning a second-round TKO in that fight. If Means wants another opportunity to face a top contender in the welterweight division, he’s going to need to repeat that performance against Oliveira, who enters this fight coming off a third-round TKO win over Will Brooks. However, Oliveria was more than five pounds overweight for the lightweight bout, necessitating his return to welterweight for this contest.

Despite its curtain-jerker placement, this should be a fun fight as these two have 35 stoppage victories between them.

And for more on UFC 207, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.