Conor McGregor forced to relinquish UFC featherweight belt, Jose Aldo new champ

UFC has officially stripped Conor McGregor of his 145 pound belt

After Daniel Cormier was forced out of the main event at UFC 206 with an injury, UFC was in desperate need of a new title fight for its Toronto card. So, the new ownership turned to the featherweight division.

Max Holloway and Anthony Pettis will now be the main event at UFC 206 and the two 145 pounders will fight for the interim featherweight title with Jose Aldo promoted to full champion and Conor McGregor forced to relinquish his 145-pound belt.

The language around McGregor no longer holding the 145 pound title is interesting, as UFC says he relinquished it, but reports are that he never agreed to that and he was stripped of the featherweight title.

UFC says McGregor has "relinquished" the 145 title. I'm told he never agreed to that, as we reported earlier, but UFC w/i rights to strip.

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) November 27, 2016

Whatever actually happened, the 145-pound division has seen a serious shakeup at the top. Aldo, now the full champion, has insisted that he's done with UFC if he isn't given a McGregor rematch, but we'll see if that holds true now that he's been upgraded to champion from interim.

With Pettis and Holloway fighting for another interim belt at 206, it means the actual featherweight title has not been fought for since UFC 194 on Dec. 12, 2015 when McGregor, then the interim champ, took the belt off of Aldo in 13 seconds.

The broadcast team also noted the winner of Holloway-Pettis will fight Aldo for the full-time belt in 2017.