Dana White: Women's title fight could make its way to UFC 200 in July

Wednesday night brought some major news for the landmark UFC 200 event this summer in Las Vegas.

We know the main event will be a welterweight non-title rematch between featherweight champ Conor McGregor (19-3 MMA, 7-1 UFC) and Nate Diaz (19-10 MMA, 14-8 UFC), who will run back their fight from UFC 196 that UFC President Dana White said was in the ballpark of a promotional record for pay-per-view sales.

We also know there will be one title fight, albeit of the interim variety, when former featherweight champ Jose Aldo (25-2 MMA, 7-1 UFC) meets former lightweight titleholder Frankie Edgar (20-4-1 MMA, 14-4-1 UFC) for the temporary belt at 145 pounds. The interim tag was decided on by the UFC when McGregor wanted his next fight to be the rematch with Diaz and not a defense of his belt.

But Wednesday night on ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” UFC President Dana White said UFC 200, which takes place July 9 at the new T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas with a main card on pay-per-view, could wind up with a women’s title fight. At the very least, he believes the event will have a couple women’s fights as part of the lineup.

“There will be a couple of women’s fights at UFC 200,” White said. “Actually, two or three, maybe. Could be (a title fight).”

If a women’s title fight were to make its way to the card, it would have to be between women’s bantamweight titleholder Miesha Tate (18-5 MMA, 5-2 UFC), who took the title from Holly Holm (10-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC) in the UFC 196 co-main event earlier this month. Tate submitted Holm in the fifth round in a comeback effort to win her first UFC title.

Women’s strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk (11-0 MMA, 5-0 UFC) puts her title on the line against Claudia Gadelha (13-1 MMA, 2-1 UFC) in the TUF 23 Finale on July 8, the night before UFC 200. The only way the 115-pound title could be up for grabs at UFC 200 is if that fight moved back a night, which isn’t likely to happen given it’s the promotional push behind the TUF 23 Finale.

After her win over Holm, it was expected that Tate would next rematch former champ Ronda Rousey. But Rousey isn’t likely to be ready until late in the year, and Tate has said she’d prefer to be a busy champion and not wait that long – even though she’s waited that long between fights in the past.

White’s “could be” for a title fight at UFC 200 certainly wasn’t definitive. But at the very least, fans of women’s MMA should be able to expect some action at the summer’s biggest event.

For more on UFC 200, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.