What is UFC 178’s real main event? All signs point to the Irish…

LAS VEGAS -- If there was any lingering doubt, the trickle of bodies slowly exiting MGM Grand's Premier Ballroom on a wild Friday afternoon killed it where it stood. These were the crazies committed enough to spend their Vegas afternoon watching grown men (and a few women) strip down to their skivvies, and yet here they were, departing in delirium while the most accomplished of all the card's men, UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson, still sported his pants.

The show was already over -- or at least put on hold until Saturday 7:45 p.m. pacific -- even if it wasn't really.

So what do we make of UFC 178, the $55 card that offers a curious dilemma for believers in the traditional main event? When Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier were comparing each other to female genitalia and lobbing death threats like dress shoes, it was an easier time. They were the show. Everything else was just a bonus.

But Alistair Overeem put a stamp on that, and now we're left with an unquestionably talented champion who struggles to gain traction, fighting an unquestionably overmatched challenger who probably could stand by the blown-up visage of his face in the halls of the MGM Grand and scarcely catch a passing glance. Johnson is an athlete who deserves his billing, no doubt, but if we're being honest with ourselves -- and what fun is this if we're not being honest -- then UFC 178 presents a scenario not seen in, well... maybe never seen at all.

It's a pay-per-view overflowing with storylines, comebacks and title implications, and the official UFC main event -- the headliner, the big one topping all the billboards across the Nevada interstate -- is effectively the fifth or sixth most compelling fight on the card. And that's bizarre. But it's also fun in an unexpected way, because it gives us a chance to be surprised by the rest.

Who can fill the void? Who steps up to claim the lion's share of the spotlight?

"You guys know who the main event is. I don't need to tell you who the main event is," Eddie Alvarez, the most ecstatic of UFC lightweights, said on Thursday. "You guys know who these fans are buying this pay-per-view for, you know why these people are coming to the MGM Grand. They're coming to watch Donald Cerrone and Eddie Alvarez fight each other. That's it. These other guys are just extras."

Alvarez grinned as the words tumbled out, but then something strange happened.

Unprompted, Alvarez paused, then ended up amending his response. "Actually, Dustin Poirier and McGregor. I'll give ‘em that. These guys are a huge draw and I, as a fighter, also want to see that fight."

Thirty minutes later Poirier stuck his finger in McGregor's face and let the Irishman know that he wasn't s**t. Twenty-four hours later Anthony Pettis, Johny Hendricks, Robbie Lawler and Gilbert Melendez drowned under hot lights and an endless deluge of shamrock-fueled questions.

By the time weigh-ins rolled around, the ghosts of Ricky Hatton were roaring, and the MGM Grand transformed into the twenty-fifth district of Dublin.

There's only one Conor McGregor. One Conor McGregor. Walking along. Singing his song. Walking in a McGregor wonderland.

No fighter can travel like Conor McGregor, that much was evident by the raucous invasion of the Irish that took place on Friday. Suddenly Poirier, a American with an electric style and eight UFC wins in 10 tries, was the away team on his own home soil. (Soil which happened to be tinted green, white and orange, much to his chagrin.)

"This is the way of the Irish. This is how we do things," McGregor joked on Thursday. "Plus, he has a small head. Facts are facts. Dustin has a really small head. Compare his head to my head and it's half the size. Plus it's bald and he has a little goatee. It's weird looking. It's looks like a little pea head. I'm just saying facts."

Poirier calls all of this baffling, and it's hard not to empathize. He spent four years slogging up the ladder, headlining events, jockeying against title contenders in ballsy fights of the year -- only to be swallowed by the antithesis of all that hustle. Now he's the bad guy staring down the oncoming headlights of a hype train conducted by the embodiment of his disdain wrapped in a permanent smirk.

"It's a business. Conor sells tickets by running his mouth and making people interested in his fights," said Poirier.

"I see an average guy whose got good counterpunching and is a good athlete. Unorthodox striking, but at the same time, at a high level like this, you miss one of those crazy spin kicks, you get taken down, maybe give up your back. You could lose a round doing that dumb stuff. I think that might happen if he does something silly and gives us his back or gives up a takedown. It's a game of inches at this point when you're fighting the best guys in the world, and I see a guy who hasn't competed with somebody like myself, hasn't been in that gritty dogfight."

It's been like this all week. Tit for tat. One man makes a move, the other pushes it a step further. All the while, the streets running rich with green, the throng eating it up and roaring for one more.

"I'm not faking nothing, and I'm certainly not rehearsing nothing," McGregor said. "There are two things that I don't like: faking, and rehearsed bulls**t. It's weird to me. I'm just speaking what I think about my opponent, how I feel the contest will go. I might throw a little jibe on how he looks, but these are just things that I do every day. The American people don't really know about it too much, so they're probably captivated by it a little bit, and obviously the athletes are flustered by it. The fighters, the competitors are flustered by it. So whatever it is, what it is, it's a beautiful little storm that it creates."

It's a storm indeed, though the beauty of these winds may differ depending on which side of the McGregor sea you sail.

But ultimately, it may not even matter. Both sides are captaining the same ship.

If Sunday rolls by and McGregor's latest premonition proves true, who's to say what's next? UFC President Dana White warned that the world would need to watch out if Ireland's pride bests featherweight's number-five on Saturday. One look at the grins plastered across he and Lorenzo Fertitta's faces as McGregor and Poirier rendered the concept of a staredown obsolete while the MGM Grand ballroom exploded like a 35,000-seat stadium, that said enough.

It's a familiar refrain, but some fighters just get it. They get that all of this, this ancillary nonsense with no real bearing on the fisticuffs, all of this is a game. And when that game is played well...

"When it builds naturally, you end up with this. The perfect hype. The perfect anticipation," McGregor said.

"The main event is Mighty Mouse, the champion. I'm a big fan of Mighty Mouse. His movement is phenomenal, his technique is fluid. But, the people are paying to see me. Whether they want to see me win or they want to see me lose, it's as simple as that. Those sweet, sweet numbers that I love so much, they never ever lie. When the pay-per-view numbers come through, the UFC brass are not stupid. They know where the numbers are coming from, they know who's bringing them in. So it's perfect. This is the people's main event."